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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 



















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


BY 

PERCEVAL GIBBON ' 

» \ 


11 Flower o’ the peach, 

Death for us all and his own life for each.” 

Fra Lippo Lippi. 




NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 
1911 






Copyright, 1911, by 
The Century Co. 


Published, October, 1911 


(S 

©CI.A297755 g- 

OU -l ■ 


TO 

JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD 









THE FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 



FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


CHAPTER I 

I T was late in the afternoon when the sheep moved 
off, and the west was full of the sunset. They 
flowed out from the cactus-ringed fold like a broad- 
ening trickle of milk, with their mild idiot faces set 
southwards towards the sparse pastures beyond the 
horizon, and the dust from their feet hung over them 
in a haze of soft bronze. Half-way along the path be- 
tween the house and the dam, Paul turned to watch 
their departure, dwelling with parted lips on the picture 
they made as they drifted forth to join themselves with 
earth and sky in a single mellowness of hue. 

The little farmhouse with its outbuildings, and the one 
other house that reared its steep roof within eyeshot of 
the farm, were behind him as he stood; nothing inter- 
rupted the suave level of the miles stretching forth, like 
a sluggish sea, to the sky-line. In its sunset mood, its 
barren brown, the universal tint into which its poor 
scrub faded and was lost to the eye, was touched to 
warmth and softened; it was a wilderness with a soul. 
The tall boy, who knew it in all its aspects for a neigh- 
bor, stood gazing absorbed as the sheep came to a pause, 
with the lean, smooth-coated dog at their heels, and 
waited for the shepherd who was to drive them through 
the night. He was nearing seventeen years of age, and 

3 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


the whole of those years had been spent on the Karoo, 
in the native land of dreams. The glamour of it was 
on his face, where the soft childish curves were not yet 
broken into angles, and in his gaze, as his steady un- 
conscious eyes pored on the distance, deep with fore- 
knowledge of the coming of the night. 

“Baas!” 

Paul closed his lips and turned absently. The old 
black shepherd was eager to linger out a minute or two 
in talk before he went forth to his night-long solitude. 
He stood, a bundle of shabby clothes, with his strong old 
face seamed with gray lines and the corners of the eyes 
bunched into puckers,, waiting in the hope that the 
young baas might be tempted into conversation. He 
carried a little armory of smooth, wire-bound sticks, his 
equipment against all the perils of the unknown, and 
smiled wistfully, ingratiatingly, up into Paul’s face. 

“Well?” said the boy. 

It all depended on the beginning, for if he should 
merely nod and turn away there would be nothing left 
but to follow the sheep out to the silence. The old man 
eyed him warily. 

“Has the baas heard,” he asked, “that there is a mad 
Kafir in the veld?” 

“ No, ” said Paul. ‘ ‘ A mad Kafir ? ” 

The old man nodded half a dozen times. “There is 
such a one,” he affirmed. The thing was done; the 
boy would listen, and he let his sticks fall at his feet 
that he might have two hands to talk with. They were 
speaking “Kitchen Kafir,” the lingua franca of the 
Cape, and since that is a sterile and colorless tongue — 
the embalmed corpse of the sonorous native speech — 
the tale would need pantomime to do it justice. 

4 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


1 1 There is such a one,” repeated the shepherd. “He 
goes about alone, in the day and in the night, talking 
as he goes to companions who are not there, and laugh- 
ing sometimes as though they had answered him. And 
that is very strange.” 

“Yes,” said the boy slowly. His eyes traveled in- 
voluntarily to the veld brooding under the sky. “Who 
has seen him ? ” he asked. 

1 1 I have, ’ ’ said the shepherd, putting a big black fore- 
finger to his own breast. “I have seen him.” He held 
out his great hand before him, with the fingers splayed, 
and counted on them. “Four nights ago I saw him 
when the moon was rising.” 

“And he was mad?” 

“Mad as a sheep.” 

Paul waited for the tale. The old man had touched 
his interest with the skill of a clever servant practis- 
ing upon a master. A hint of mystery, of things liv- 
ing under the inscrutable mask of the veld, could not 
fail to hold him. He watched the shepherd with a 
kind of grave intensity as he gathered himself to tell 
the matter. 

“The moon was rising,” he said, “and it lay low 
above the earth, making long shadows of the stones and 
little bushes. The sheep were here and there, and in 
the middle of them was I, with a handful of fire and 
my blanket. It was very still, baas, for the wind was 
gone down, and I heard nothing at all but the ash 
sliding in the fire and the slow noise of the sheep 
eating. There was not even a jackal to stand out of 
sight and cry in the dark. 

“Perhaps I was on the brink of sleep — perhaps I was 
only cloudy with thoughts — I do not know. But very 

5 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


suddenly I heard singingr— a voice coming nearer that 
sang a curious music/ ’ 

“ Curious !” The boy was hanging on the words. 

* ‘ Curious !” he repeated. 

“It was a song,” explained the old Kafir, “but the 
words of it were meaningless, just noises such as a baby 
makes — a babble. I listened, for I was not afraid. 
And soon I could hear footfalls among the stones and 
the singer came between me and the young moon, very 
great and black against the sky. It was only when he 
stood by my fire that I saw he was not a white man, 
but a Kafir. He was young, a strong young man, wear- 
ing clothes and boots.” He paused. “Boots,” he said 
again and thrust out his own bare foot, scarred and 
worn with much traveling. “Boots!” 

In a town, it is conceivable that a Kafir may wear 
boots for purposes of splendor; but not on the Karoo. 
Paul saw the old man’s point; here was an attribute 
of the unnatural. 

“Yes,” he said; “go on.’ 

“I was sitting, with my pipe. He stood by the fire 
and looked down at me, and I could see by the shine 
of his teeth that he was smiling. But when he spoke, 
it was like his song — just noises, no speech at all. It 
was then that I began to doubt him. But I gave him 
greeting, and moved that he might sit down and smoke 
with me. He listened and shook his head gently, and 
spoke again with his slow soft voice in his language of 
the mad.” 

“What did it sound like?” demanded Paul. 

“Baas, it sounded like English,” replied the shep- 
herd. “Yes, there are many Kafirs who speak English; 
the dorps are noisy with them ; but there are none who 

6 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


do not speak Kafir. And this man had come through 
the night, singing in his strange tongue, going straight 
forward like one that has a purpose. I and my fire 
stayed him only for a minute; he was not one of us; 
he stood, with his head on one side, smiling down, while 
I began to feel fear and ill-ease. I had it in my mind 
that this was a ghost, but of a sudden he stooped to 
where my bread lay — I had newly eaten my supper, 
and the things still lay about — and took a piece as 
large as this fist. He seemed to ask for it, but I could 
not understand him. Then he laughed and tossed some- 
thing into my lap, and turned again to the night and 
the long shadows and the things that belong there. His 
feet moved among the stones and he was gone; and 
later I heard him singing again in the distance, till his 
voice dwindled and was lost.” 

“He threw you something,” said the boy. “What 
was it?” 

The old shepherd nodded. “I will show the baas,” 
he said, and made search among precarious pockets. 

‘ 1 This is it ; I have not spent it. ’ ’ 

It was a shilling, looking no larger than sixpence on 
the flat of his great horny palm. Paul looked at it and 
turned it over, sensible that something was lacking in 
it, since it differed in no respect from any other shilling. 
The magic of madness and the stolid massiveness of 
Queen Victoria ’s effigy were not easy to reconcile. 

“It looks like a good one,” he commented. 

“It is good,” said the shepherd. “But — ” he 
paused ere he put it in its true light — “the bread was 
not more than a pennyworth.” 

A hundred yards away the waiting sheep discharged 
a small volley of bleats. Paul raised his head. 

7 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Yes,” he said, “the veld is full of wonderful 
things. But I would like to hear that language of the 
mad. ’ ’ 

He nodded in token of dismissal and walked slowly 
on towards the dam, where the scarlet of the sky had 
changed the water to blood. The old shepherd picked 
up his sticks and went heavily after the sheep, a gro- 
tesque and laborious figure in that wonder of evening 
light. The smooth dog slunk towards him, snuffling 
in welcome; the Kafir dog is not a demonstrative ani- 
mal, and his snuffle meant much. The shepherd hit 
him with the longest of the wire-bound sticks. 

“Hup !” he grunted. “Get on!” 

At the top of the dam wall, the sloping bank of 
earth and stones that held the water, Paul paused to 
watch them pass into the shifting distance, ere he went 
to his concerns at the foot of it. He could not have put 
a name to the quality in them which stirred him and 
held him gazing, for beauty is older than speech; but 
words were not needful to flavor the far prospect of 
even land, with the sheep moving across it, the squat, 
swart shape of the shepherd pacing at their heels, and the 
strange, soft light making the whole unreal and mysteri- 
ous. 

Below the dam wall, the moisture oozing through 
had made a space of rank grass and trailing weed- 
vines, and the ground underfoot was cool and damp 
through the longest day of sun. Here one might sit 
in the odor of water and watch the wind lift tall spirals 
of dust and chase them over the monotonous miles where 
the very bushes rustled like dead boughs at their 
passage. It had the quality of a heritage, a place 
where one may be aloof and yet keep an eye on the 
8 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


world, and since there were no others who needed elbow- 
room for their dreams, Paul had it to himself. Here 
and there about the sloping bank, as on the walls of 
a gallery, his handiwork cracked and crumbled in the 
sun — little masks and figures of red clay which he 
fashioned to hold some shape that had caught his eye 
and stayed in it. He had an instinct for the momentary 
attitude, the quick, unconscious pose which is life, the 
bunched compact shape of a sheep grazing, the poise 
of a Kafir girl with a load on her head, a figure re- 
vealed in wind-blown clothes and lost in a flash. The 
sweet, pliant clay was his confidant; it was not the 
fault of the clay that he could tell it so much less than 
he knew. 

He groped, kneeling, below a vine, and brought out 
the thing he had hidden there the evening before when 
the light failed him. A flattened stone at the foot of 
the wall was his table ; he set the clay down tenderly and 
squatted beside it, with his back to the veld and all the 
world. It was to be the head of a negro, the negro as 
Paul knew him, and already the clay had shape. The 
shallow round of the skull was achieved; he had been 
feeling, darkly, gropingly, for the brutal angle of the 
brows that should brood like a cloud over the whole coun- 
tenance. It had evaded him and baffled him; he knew 
how it should be, but when the time had come for him 
to leave it for the night, the brows still cocked them- 
selves in a suggestion of imbecility which was heart- 
breaking. He turned it round, frowning a little as his 
habit was when he centered his faculties upon a matter ; 
the chaos of the featureless face below the smooth head 
fronted him. 

“ Allemachtag!” he cried aloud, as he set eyes on it. 

9 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


There was no possibility that he could be mistaken; 
he remembered, in their smallest exasperating detail, 
those brows as he had left them, taunting him as bad 
work will. Even now, he had but to close his eyes 
and he could see them, absurd and clamorous for cor- 
rection. But — he stared dumbly at the clay as he 
realized it — since then another creator had played with 
it, or else the thing, left to itself, had frowned. The 
rampart of the brows had deepened above the empty 
face; Paul knew in it the darkness for which he had 
sought, the age-old patience quenching the spark of the 
soul. It was as different from what he had left as 
living flesh is from red clay, an inconsequent miracle. 

“Somebody,” said Paul, pondering over it — “some- 
body knows!” 

The thing troubled him a little while, but he passed 
his hand over the clay, to make yet more sure of it, 
and the cool invitation of its softness was medicine for 
his wonder. He smudged the clay to a ridge in the 
place where the nose should be, and then, forgetting 
forthwith that he was the victim of a practical joke, 
as it seemed, played upon him by the powers of the air, 
he fell to work. 

The colors in the west were burning low when he 
raised his head, disturbed by a far sound that forced 
itself on his ear. It was like a pulse in the air, a dull 
rhythmical throb faintly resonant like the beating of 
some great heart. He came to consciousness of it 
slowly, withdrawing himself unwillingly from the work 
under his hands, and noting with surprise that the 
evening light was all but gone. But the face of the 
negro was a step nearer completion, and even the out- 
line of the gross mouth was there to aid the clay to 
10 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


return his look. The far sound insisted; he lifted his 
head with mild impatience to listen to it, sighed, and 
tucked the unfinished head away in its hidingplace. 
Perhaps another night would draw out the mouth to its 
destined shape of empty, pitiful mirth. 

The beat of the gourd-drum that hung at the farm- 
house door still called, and he hastened his steps along 
the homeward path. It was the common manner of 
summons on the farm. For the European ear, the 
gourd sawed across, with a skin stretched over it, is 
empty of music, but it has the quality of sowing its 
flat voice over many miles, threading through the voices 
of nature as a snake goes through grass. Simple 
variants in the rhythm of the strokes adapt it to mes- 
sages, and now it was calling Paul. 4 ‘Paul, Paul, 
P-P-Paul!” it thrilled, and its summons was as plain 
as words. To silence it, he put fingers to his mouth 
and answered with a shrill, rending whistle. The 
gourd was silent. 

His mother was in the doorway as he came through 
the kraals; she heard his steps and called to him. 

‘ 1 Paul! That you? Where you bin all this time?” 

“By the dam,” he answered. 

“I been callin’ you this half hour,” she said. “Mrs. 
Jakes is here — she wants you.” 

The light from within the house showed her as a 
thin woman, with the shape of youth yet upon her. 
But the years had taken tribute of her freshness, and 
her small, rather vacant face was worn and faded. 
She wore her hair coiled upon her head in a way to 
frame the thin oval of the face, and there remained 
to her yet the slight prettiness of sharp weak gestures 
and little conscious attitudes. In her voice there sur- 

11 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


vived the clipped accent of London; Paul had come to 
know it as the thing that distinguished his mother from 
other women. Before her marriage she had been an 
actress of the obscure sort to be found in the lesser 
touring companies, and it was when the enterprise of 
which she was a member had broken down at the town 
of Fereira that she met and married the Boer, 
Christian du Preez, Paul’s father. She preserved from 
the old days a stock of photographs inscribed in dash- 
ing hands — “ yours to the dregs” — 4 ‘your old pal” — 
“yours ever most sincerely” — and so on a few cuttings 
from newspapers — “Miss Yivie Sinclair as Gertie 
Gottem was most unique,” said the Dopfontein Cour- 
ant — a touch of raucousness in her voice, and a cease- 
less weary longing for the easy sham life, the foolish 
cheerful companions, the stimulus of the daily pub- 
licity. 

She drew the boy in, sliding her arm through his, 
to where Mrs. Jakes sat waiting. 

“Here he is at last,” she said, looking up at him pret- 
tily. She often said she was glad her boy was tall 
enough to go into a picture, but a mother must admire 
her son for one thing or another. 

Mrs. Jakes acknowledged Paul’s arrival with a lady- 
like little smile. “Better late than never,” she pro- 
nounced. 

She was the wife of the doctor at the Sanatorium, 
the old Dutch house that showed its steep roofs within 
a couple of miles of the farm, where came in twos and 
threes the consumptives from England, to mend their 
broken lungs in the clean air of the Karoo. They 
came not quite so frequently nowadays, for a few that 
returned healed, or believing themselves to be healed, 
12 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


had added to their travel-sketches of the wonderful old 
house and its surroundings an account of Dr. Jakes 
and his growing habit of withdrawing from his duties 
to devote himself to drink. Their tales commonly 
omitted to describe justly the anxious, lonely woman 
who labored at such times to supply his place, driv- 
ing herself to contrive and arrange to keep the life 
of the house moving in its course, to maintain an as- 
sured countenance, and all the while to screen him 
from public shame and ruin. She was a wan little 
woman, clinging almost with desperation to those trivial 
mannerisms and fashions of speech which in certain 
worlds distinguished the lady from the mere person. 
She had lain of nights beside a drunken husband, she 
had fought with him when he would have gone out to 
make a show of his staggering gait and blurred speech 
— horrible silent battles in a candle-lit room, ending 
in a gasping fall and sickness — she had lied and cheated 
to hide the sorry truth, she had bared her soul in 
gratitude to her kind God that her child had died. These 
things as a matter of course, as women accept and be- 
little their martyrdom; but never in her life had she 
left the spoon standing in her tea-cup or mislaid her 
handkerchief. The true standards of her life were 
still inviolate. 

She liked Paul because he was shy and gentle, but 
not well enough to talk to him without mentioning the 
weather first. 

“The evenings are drawing out nicely / ’ she re- 
marked, leaning to one side in her chair to see through 
the door the darkness growing dense upon the veld. 
“It reminds me a little of a 'June evening in England 
— if only the rain holds off.” 

13 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Yes,” said Paul. There would be rain in the ordi- 
nary course in three months or so, if all went well, but 
it was not worth while to go into the matter with Mrs. 
J akes. 

“We are to have another guest,” the lady went on. 
The doctor’s patients were always “guests” when she 
spoke of them. “A young lady this time. And that 
is what I came about, really.” 

“Mrs. Jakes wants you to go in to the station with 
the Cape-cart and fetch her out, Paul,” explained his 
mother. “You ’ll ’ave the first look at her. Mrs. Jakes 
takes her oath she is young. ’ ’ 

Mrs. Jakes shuddered faintly, and looked at the 
floor. 

“About twenty-six, I understand,” she said. “About 
that.” Her tone reproached Mrs. du Preez for a lapse 
of good manners. Mrs. Jakes did not understand the 
sprightliness of mild misstatement. She turned to 
Paul. 

“If you could manage it,” she suggested. “If it 
would n ’t be too much trouble ! The doctor, I ’m sorry 
to say, has a touch of the sun; he is subject, you know.” 
Her hands clasped nervously in her lap, and her face 
seemed blind as she beat bravely on. “The climate 
really doesn’t suit him at all; he can’t stand the heat. 
I ’ve begged and prayed him to give it up and go back 
to private practice at home. But he considers it his 
duty to keep on.” 

“The morning train?” asked Paul. 

“It is early,” lamented Mrs. Jakes. “But we should 
be so much obliged.” 

Paul nodded. “All right,” he said. “I will bring 
her, Mrs. Jakes.” 


14 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


There are transactions consecrated to the humorous 
point of view, landmarks in the history of laughter. 
Mrs. du Preez honestly believed that a youth and a 
girl alone in the dawn were a spectacle essentially mirth- 
ful. 

" Catch him missing the chance/ ’ she said, with her 
slightly jarring laugh. 4 'None of your larks, now, 
Paul ! Promise you ’ll behave ! ’ ’ 

"Yes, mother,” Paul promised gravely, and her face 
went blank before the clear eyes he turned upon her. 
Mrs. Jakes in her chair rustled her stiff dress in a 
wriggle of approval. 

"Miss Harding is the name,” she told Paul. "You ’ll 
manage to find her? I don’t know at all what she ’s 
like, but she comes of a very good family, I believe. 
You can’t mistake her.” 

"Paul knows the look of the lungy ones by now,” 
Mrs. du Preez assured her. "Don’t you, Paul? It ’s 
lungs, of course, Mrs. Jakes?” 

"Chest trouble,” corrected Mrs. Jakes, nervously. 
She preferred the less exact phrase, for there is indeli- 
cacy in localising diseases, and from the lungs to the 
bowels it is but a step. "Chest trouble, a slight at- 
tack. Fortunately, Miss Harding is taking it in time. 
The doctor lays stress on the necessity for taking it in 
time. ’ ’ 

"Well,” said Mrs. du Preez, "whatever it is, she ’ll 
’ave the fashions. Lungs or liver, they ’ve got to 
dress, and it ’ll be something to see a frock again. 
She ’s from London, you said?” 

Mrs. Jakes rearranged her black skirts which had 
suffered by implication, and suppressed au impulse to 
reply that she had not said London. 

15 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“The address is Kensington,” she answered. “Very 
good people live in Kensington. ’ ’ 

“There ’s shops there, at any rate/’ said Mrs. du 
Preez. “Lord, don’t I remember ’em! I had lodg- 
ings at Hammersmith once myself, and an aunt in the 
High Street. There ’s not much you can tell me about 
that part.” 

She nodded a challenge to Mrs. Jakes, who shrank 
from it. 

“Then I can tell the doctor that you ’ll meet Miss 
Harding?” Mrs. Jakes asked Paul. “He will be so 
obliged. You see, he ’d go himself, only — you quite 
see? Then I ’ll expect Miss Harding for breakfast.” 

She rose and shook herself, the gentle expert shake 
that settles a woman’s clothes into their place, and 
tendered him a vague, black-gloved hand. Gloves were 
among her defenses against the crudities of the Karoo. 
She was prim in the lamp-light, and extraordinarily 
detached from the little uncomfortable room, with its 
pale old photographs of forgotten actors staring down 
from wall and mantel. 

“She may as well see you first,” she said, and smiled 
at him as though there were an understanding between 
them. 


16 


CHAPTER II 


A T three o’clock in the morning it was still dark, 
though in thte east, low down and gradual, there 
paled an apprehension of the dawn. From the driving- 
seat of the high two-wheeled cart, Paul looked for- 
ward over the heads of his horses to where the station 
lights were blurred like a luminous bead on the 
thread of railway that sliced without a curve from 
sky to sky. It was the humblest of halting places, with 
no town at its back to feed the big trains; it owed 
its existence frankly to a gaunt water-tank for the 
refreshment of engines. But for Paul it had the sig- 
nificance of a threshold. He could lose himself in the 
crowding impressions of a train’s arrival, as it broad- 
ened and grew out of the distance and bore down be- 
tween the narrow platforms, immense and portentous, 
and thudded to a standstill as though impatient of the 
trivial delay. The smell of it, the dull shine of glass 
and varnish, were linked in his mind with the names 
of strange, distant cities; it was freighted with the 
romance of far travel. There were glimpses of cush- 
ioned interiors, and tired faces that looked from the 
windows, giving a perfunctory glance to the Karoo 
which Paul knew as the world. And once he had 
watched four men, with a little folding table cramped 
between their knees, playing cards, low-voiced, alert, 
each dark predatory face marked with an impassivity 
that was like the sheath that hides a blade. He stared 
2 17 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

at them fascinated; not once did they raise their eyes 
to glance through the window, nor for an instant did 
one of them slacken his profound attention. Ahead, at 
the platform’s end, the great engine whined like a 
child that gropes for the breast, till the feed-hose con- 
tented it and its gurgle-gurgle succeeded to the thin 
wail of the steam' The Kafir orange woman made 
melodious offers of naartjes and a hammer clinked 
critically along the wheels. It was the live season of 
the day, the poignant moment, its amends for the slow 
empty hours. But the men about the table had graver 
concerns. The feed-hose splashed back out of the way, 
the guard shouted, the brakes whanged loose. The 
long train jolted and slid, and still they had not looked 
up. Paul could not leave them; he even ran along the 
platform till their window distanced him, and then 
stopped, panting, to watch the tail of the train sink to 
the horizon. He had seen the Jew in earnest and it 
left him daunted. 

“They wouldn’t even look,” he was saying, as he 
went back to his cart. “They wouldn’t even look.” 
It served as a revelation to one who looked so much and 
so fervently. 

The other train, which came and went before the 
daylight, had its equal quality of a swift, brief visitor, 
and the further mystery of windows lighted dimly 
through drawn curtains, whereon surprising shadow 
heads would dawn and vanish in abrupt motion. It was 
strange to stand beside one and hear from within the 
crying of an infant and the soothing of a mother, 
both invisible, arriving from the void on one hand 
and bound for the void on the other, with the Karoo 
not even an incident in their passage. Paul won- 
18 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


dered whether one day that infant might not pass 
through again, with trousers and a mustache and a 
cigar, and another trouble to perturb him and cards 
and partners to do the soothing. 

He arrived well in advance of the time of the train, 
and tied his docile horses to the hitching rail beside 
the road. Within the station there was the usual ex- 
pectant group under the dim lamps, the two or three 
men who attended to the tank, a Cape Mounted Police- 
man, spurred and trim, and a few others, besides the 
half-dozen or so mute and timid Kafirs who lounged 
at the end of the platform. The white men talked to- 
gether and shivered at the cold of the night; only the 
Cape Policeman, secure in his uniform great-coat, stood 
with legs astraddle and his whip held behind his back, 
a model of correct military demeanor in the small 
hours. Paul noted the aggressive beauty of his atti- 
tude and his fine young virility, and stared somewhat 
till the armed man noticed it. 

“Well, young feller,” he drawled. “You haven’t 
fallen in love with me, have you ? ’ ’ 

“No,” answered Paul, astonished. 

Two or three of the bystanders laughed, and made 
him uncomfortable. He did not fully understand why 
he had been spoken to, and stared at his questioner a 
little helplessly. The policeman smacked his boot with 
his whip. 

“Nor yet me with you,” he said. “So if you want 
to stare, go and stare at something else. See?” 

Paul backed away, angry and shy, and moved down 
the platform to be out of the sound of their voices. 
The things that people laughed at were seldom clear 
to him; it seemed that he had been left out of some 

19 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


understanding to take certain things as funny and 
laugh at them. His mother’s mirth, breaking start- 
lingly out of unexpected incidents, out of words spoken 
without afterthought, out of little accidents and break- 
ages, always puzzled him. It was as little to be under- 
stood as her tears, when she would sit silent through 
a long afternoon of stagnant heat, and burst suddenly 
into weeping when some one spoke to her. 

He came to a standstill at the point where the 
station roof ended and left the platform bare to the calm 
skies. The metals gleamed before his feet, ranging 
out to the veld whence the train would come. He 
listened for the sound of it, the low drum-note so like 
the call of the gourd-drum at the farmhouse door, 
which would herald it even before its funnel dragged 
its glare into view. There was nothing to be heard, 
and he turned to the Kafirs behind him, and spoke 
to one who squatted against the wall apart from the 
rest. 

“Is the train late?” he asked, in the “Kitchen 
Kafir” of his everyday commerce with natives. 

The black man raised his head at the question, but 
did not answer. Paul repeated it a little louder. 

The native held his head as if he listened closely or 
were deaf. Then he smiled, his white teeth gleaming 
in the black circle of his shadowed face. 

“I ’m sorry,” he answered, distinctly; “I can’t un- 
derstand what you say. You ’ll have to speak Eng- 
lish.” 

It was the voice of a negro, always vaguely musical, 
and running to soft full tones, but there was a note 
in it which made it remarkable and unfamiliar, some 
turn which suggested (to Paul, at any rate) that this 
20 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


was a man with properties even stranger than his speak- 
ing English. He thrilled with a sense of adventure, for 
this, of course, was the mad creature of the shepherd’s 
tale, who sang to himself of nights when the moon 
rose on the veld. If a dog had answered him in set 
phrases, it would not have been more amazing than 
to hear that precise, aptly modulated voice reply in 
easy English from the mouth of a Kafir. 

“I — I ’ve heard of you,” he said, stammering. 

i ‘ Have you ? ’ ’ He remembered how the old shepherd 
had spoken of the man’s smile. He was smiling now, 
looking up at Paul. 

“You ’ve heard of me — I wonder what you ’ve 
heard. And 1 ’ ve seen you, too. ’ ’ 

“Where did you see me? Who are you?” asked 
Paul quickly. The man was mad, according to the 
shepherd, but Paul was not very clear as to what it 
meant to be mad, beyond that it enabled one to see 
things unseen by the sane. 

The Kafir turned over, and rose stiffly to his feet, 
like a man spent with fatigue. 

“They ’ll wonder if they see me sitting down while 
I talk to you,” he said, with a motion to the group 
about the Cape Mounted Policeman. His gesture 
made a confidant of Paul and enlisted him, as it were, 
in a conspiracy to keep up appearances. It was pos- 
sible to see him when he stood on his feet, a young man, 
as tall as the boy, with a skin of warm Kafir black. 
But the face, the foolish, tragic mask of the negro, 
shaped for gross, easy emotions, blunted on the grind- 
stone of the races of mankind, was almost unexpected. 
Paul stared dumbly, trying to link it on some plane of 
reason with the quiet, schooled voice. 

21 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“What was it yon were asking me?” the Kafir in- 
quired. 

But Paul had forgotten. “Don’t you speak anything 
but English?” he demanded now. 

The Kafir smiled again. “A little French,” he re- 
plied. “Nothing to speak of.” He saw that the lad 
was bewildered, and turned grave at once. “Don’t 
be frightened,” he said quickly. “There ’s nothing to 
be frightened of.” 

Paul shook his head. “I ’m not frightened,” he an- 
swered slowly. “It ’s not that. But — you said you 
had seen me before?” 

“Yes,” the Kafir nodded. “One evening about a 
fortnight ago ; you did n ’t notice me. I was walking 
on the veld, and I came by a dam, with somebody sitting 
under the wall and trying to model in clay. ’ ’ 

“Oh!” Paul was suddenly illuminated. 

“Yes. I ’d have spoken to you then, only you 
seemed so busy,” said the Kafir. “Besides, I didn’t 
know how you ’d take it. But I went there later on 
and had a look at the things you ’d made. That ’s how 
I saw you.” 

“Then,” said Paul, “it was you — ” 

“Hush!” The Kafir touched him warningly on the 
arm, for the Cape Policeman had turned at his raised 
voice to look towards them. “Not so loud. You mean 
the head? Yes, I went on with it a bit. I hope you 
did n’t mind.” 

“No,” replied Paul. “I didn’t mind. No!” 

His mind beat helplessly among these incongruities; 
only one thing was clear; here was a man who could 
shape things in clay. Upon the brink of that world 
of which the station was a door, he had encountered 
22 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


a kindred spirit. The thought made him tremble; it 
was so vital a matter that he could not stay to consider 
that the spirit was caged in a black skin. The single 
fact engrossed him to the exclusion of all the other 
factors in the situation, just as some sight about the 
farm would strike him while at work, and hold him, 
absorbed and forgetful of all else, till either its inter- 
est was exhausted or he was recalled to his task by 
a shout across the kraals. 

‘ ‘ I did n ’t mind at all, ’ ’ he replied. * ‘ How did you do 
it? I tried, but it wouldn’t come.” 

“You weren’t quite sure what you were trying for,” 
said the Kafir. “Was n’t that it?” 

“Was it?” wondered Paul. 

“I think so.” The Kafir’s smile shone out again. 
“Once you ’re sure what you mean to do, it ’s easy. 
If I had a piece of clay, I ’d show you. There ’s a way 
of thumbing it up, just a trick, you know — ” 

“ I ’m there every evening, ’ ’ said Paul eagerly. 4 1 But 
tell me: do other people make things out of clay, too 
— over there?” 

His arm pointed along the railway; the gesture com- 
prehended sweepingly the cities and habitations of men. 
The idea that there was a science of fingering clay, that 
it was practised and studied, excited him wildly. 

“Gently!” warned the Kafir. He looked at the boy 
curiously. “Yes,” he said. “Lots of people do it, 
and lots more go to look at the things they make and 
talk about them. People pay money to learn to do it, 
and there are great schools where they are taught to 
model — to make things, you know, in clay, and stone, 
and bronze. Did you think it was all done behind dam 
walls ? ’ ’ 


23 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Paul breathed deep. 4 ‘ I did n ’t know, ’ ’ he murmured. 

“Do you know Capetown?” asked the other. “No? 
It doesn’t matter. You ’ve heard of Jan van Riebeck, 
though?” 

As it happened, Paul had heard of the Surgeon of the 
Fleet who first carried dominion to the shadow of 
Table Mountain. 

“Well,” said the Kafir, “you can imagine Jan van 
Riebeck, shaped in bronze, standing on a high pedestal 
at the foot of a great street, with the water of the bay 
behind him, where his ships used to float, and his 
strong Dutch face lifted to look up to Table Mountain, 
as it was when he landed? Don’t think of the bronze 
shape ; think of the man. That ’s what clay is for 
— to make things like that!” 

“Yes, yes. That ’s what it ’s for,” cried Paul. 
“But — I never saw anything like that.” 

“Plenty of time,” said the other. “And that ’s only 
one of the things to see. In London — ” 

“You ’ve been in London?” asked Paul quickly. 

“ Yes, ” said the Kafir, nodding. ‘ 4 Why ? ’ ’ 

Paul was silent for a space of seconds. When he an- 
swered it was in a low voice. 

“I ’ve seen nothing,” he said. “I can’t find out 
those ways to work the clay. But — but if somebody 
would just show me, just teach me those — those tricks 
you spoke about — ” 

“All right.” The Kafir patted his arm. “Under 
the dam wall, eh? In the evenings? I ’ll come, and 
then — ” 

“What?” said Paul eagerly, for he had broken off 
abruptly. 

“The train,” said the Kafir, pointing, and sighed. 

24 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Paul had been too intent in talk to hear it, but he 
could see now, floating against the distance, the bead 
of light which grew while he watched. The group 
further down the platform dissolved, and the tank-men 
went past at a run to their work. A voice at his elbow 
made Paul turn quickly. It was the Cape Mounted 
Policeman. 

“You 're not having any trouble with this nigger, 
hey?” he demanded. 

“No,” said Paul, flushing. The Kafir bit off a smile 
and stood submissive, with an eye on the boy's troubled 
face. 

“You don't want to let them get fresh with you,” 
said the policeman. “I 've been keepin' my eye on 
him and he talks too much. Have you finished with 
him now?” 

His silver-headed whip came out from behind his 
back ready to dismiss the negro in the accepted man- 
ner. Paul trembled and took a step which brought him 
near enough to seize the whip if it should flick back 
for the cut. 

“Let him alone,” he said wrathfully. “Mind your 
own business.” 

“Eh?” the policeman was astonished. 

“You let him alone,” repeated Paul, bracing himself 
nervously for combat, and ready to cry because he 
could not keep from trembling. He had never come 
to blows in his life, but he meant to now. The police- 
man stared at him, and laughed harshly. 

“He 's a friend of yours, I suppose,” he suggested, 
striving for a monstrous affront. 

“Yes,” retorted Paul hotly, “he is.” 

For a moment it looked as though the policeman, out- 
25 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


raged in the deepest recesses of his nature, would burst 
a blood vessel or cry for help. A man whose prayer 
that he may be damned is granted on the nail could 
scarcely have looked less shocked. He recovered him- 
self with a gulp. 

4 4 Oh, he is, is he? A friend of yours? A nigger !” 
Then, with a swelling of rage he dodged Paul's grasp- 
ing hand and swung the whip. “I ’ll teach him to — ” 

He came to a stop, open-mouthed. The Kafir was 
gone. He had slipped away unheard while they quar- 
reled, and the effect of it was like a conjuring trick. 
Even Paul gaped at the place where he had been and 
now was not. 

“Blimy!” said the policeman, reduced to an ex- 
pression of his civilian days, and vented a short bark 
of laughter. “And so, young feller, he ’s a friend o’ 
yours, is he? Now, lemme give you just a word of 
advice.” 

His young, sun-roughened face was almost paternal 
for a moment, and Paul shook with a yearning to 
murder him, to do anything that would wipe the self- 
satisfaction from it. He sought furiously for a form 
of anathema that would shatter the man. 

“Go to hell,” he cried. 

“Oh, well,” said the policeman, tolerantly, and then 
the train’s magnificent uproar of arrival gave Paul 
an opportunity to be rid of him. 

In the complication of events Paul had all but for- 
gotten his duty of discovering the young lady with 
“chest trouble,” and now he wondered rather dole- 
fully how to set about it. He stood back to watch 
the carriage windows flow past. Would it be at all 
possible just to stand where he was and shout “Miss 
26 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Harding” till she answered? To do that needed some 
one more like the policeman and less like Paul; the 
mere thought of it was embarrassing. The alternative 
was, to wait until such passengers as alighted — they 
would not be many — had taken themselves away, and 
then to go up to the one that remained and say, ‘‘Is 
your name Miss Harding, if you please?” But sup- 
posing she answered, “Mind your own business!” 

The train settled and stood, and Paul became aware 
that from the carriage nearest him a woman was look- 
ing forth, with her face in the full light of a lamp. 
The inveterate picture-seeker in him suddenly found 
her engrossing, as she leaned a little forward, lifting 
her face to the soft meager light, and framed in the 
varnished wood of the window. It was a pale face, with 
that delicacy and luster of pallor which make rose 
tints seem over-robust. It was grave and composed; 
there was something there which the boy, in his inno- 
cence, found at once inscrutable and pitiful, like the 
bravery of a little child. Distinctly, this was a day 
of surprises; it came to him that he had not known 
that the world had women like this. His eyes, always 
the stronghold of dreams, devoured her, unconscious 
that she was returning his gaze. Perhaps to her, he 
also was a source of surprise, with his face rapt and 
vague, his slender boyishness, his general quality of 
standing always a little aloof from his surroundings. 
On the Karoo, people said of him that he was “old- 
fashioned”; one word is as good as another when 
folk understand each other. The point was that it was 
necessary to find some term to set Paul apart from 
themselves. 

He saw the girl was making preparations to leave 

27 


FLOWEK O’ THE PEACH 


the carriage, and was suddenly inspired. He found 
the handle of the door and jerked it open, and there 
she was above him, and looking down. She wore some 
kind of scent, very faint and elusive; he was conscious 
of her as a near and gentle and fragrant personality. 

“I hope,” he said, letting the words come, “I 
hope you are Miss Harding ? ’ ’ 

The girl smiled. It had been prettily spoken, with 
the accent of sincerity. 

“Yes,” she answered. “You have come to meet 
me?” 

The thing about her to which Paul could put no 
name was that she was finished, a complete and per- 
fect product of a special life, which, whatever its de- 
fects and shortcomings, is yet able to put a polish of 
considerable wearing qualities on its practitioners. 
She knew her effect; her education had revealed it to 
her early; she was aware of the pale, intent figure she 
cut, and her appearance of enlightened virginity. The 
reverence in the boy’s eyes touched her and warmed 
her at once; it was a charming welcome at the end of 
that night’s journey. Paul’s guilelessness had served 
the specious ends of tact, for to corroborate a woman’s 
opinion of herself is the sublime compliment. 

He received the lesser luggage which she handed 
down to him and then she came down herself, and one 
train, at least, had shed its marvel upon the Karoo. 
She was not less wonderful and foreign on the plat- 
form than she had been at the window; the Cape 
Policeman, coming past again, lost his military-man air 
of a connoisseur in women and stiffened to a strutting 
perfection of demeanor at sight of her. South Africa 
is still so short of women that it makes the most of 
28 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


those it can get, both as goddesses and as beasts of 
burden. Paul was free of the evil civilized habit of 
thinking while he could feel, and the girl had to de- 
spatch the single lanky porter for her baggage her- 
self and attend to having it stacked at the back of 
the cart. Then she was beside him, with the poignant 
air from the open south fresh on their faces, and the 
empty veld before them. The slow dawn was sud- 
denly magical and the stillness was the hush that at- 
tends miracles. 

He had to give his mind to steering the big cart 
through the gateway to the road, and it was here 
that he saw, against the white fence, a waiting figure 
that looked up and was silent. He bent forward and 
waved his hand, but the Kafir did not respond. The 
girl at his side broke silence in her low rich voice. 

‘ ‘ That was a native, was n ’t it ? ” she asked. 

Paul looked at her. “It was a — a friend of mine,” 
he answered seriously. “A Kafir, you know.” 

The light in the eastern sky had grown and its lower 
edge, against the rim of the earth, was tinged with a 
rose-and-bronze presentiment of the sunrise. The 
Karoo lay under a twilight, with the night stripping 
from its face like a veil drawn westwards and away. 
In that half-light, its spacious level, its stillness, its 
quality of a desert, were enhanced; its few and little 
inequalities were smoothed out and merged in one 
empty flatness, and the sky stood over in a single 
arch, sprinkled with stars that were already burning 
pale. In all the vast expanse before them, there rose no 
roof, no tree, no token of human habitation; the eye 
that wandered forward, returned, like the dove to the 
Ark, for lack of a resting-place. It was a world at 
29 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


gaze, brooding grimly. The little morning wind, which 
would die when the sun rose clear of the horizon and 
leave the veld to its day-long torpor of heat, leaned 
upon their faces; the girl raised her brows against it 
and breathed deeply of its buoyancy. 

“Oh,” she said; “this is what I came for.” 

“The air?” Paul glanced sideways at her clear 
profile set against the shadowy morning. “They say it 
is good for — for — ” 

He hesitated; Mrs. Jakes had managed to make the 
word difficult. But Miss Harding took it in her stride. 

“For the lungs?” she suggested without compunc- 
tion. “Yes, I ’m sure it is. And you live here all the 
time, do you?” 

“I was born here,” Paul answered. 

“How you must love it,” she said, and met his eyes 
with a look in which there was a certain curiosity. 4 ‘ All 
this, I mean,” she explained. Then: “But do you?” 

“Yes,” he answered. “It ’s — it ’s fine to look at — if 
you like looking at things.” 

It w r as not all that he desired to say, for he was 
newly eager to make himself clear to this wonderful 
person at his side, and he felt that he was not doing him- 
self justice. But Miss Harding had seen inarticulate 
souls before, aching to be confidential and to make rev- 
elations and unable to run their trouble into a mould 
of speech. They were not uncommon in the neighbor- 
hood of her address in Kensington. She smiled her 
recognition of the phenomenon. “There are not many 
kinds of men, and only two kinds of boy,” she said to 
herself. She was twenty-six, and she knew. 

“Oh, I,” she answered. “Yes, I like looking at 
things.” 


30 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Paul nodded, watching his horses. “I was sure you 
did when I saw you at the window,” he said. He 
turned to her, and she smiled at him, interested in the 
strong simplicity with which he spoke. 

“I was sure,” he repeated, “and yet nobody like you 
ever came here before, ever. They always went on in 
the train. I used to wonder if one of them would never 
get out, but they never did. They just sat still by the 
window, with their faces tired and sleepy, and went 
on again.” 

He loosed the lash of his whip, and it made lightning 
circles over the off horse, and the tail of the lash 
slapped that animal reproachfully on the neck. Miss 
Harding contented herself with a little incoherent noise 
of general sympathy. “If I say anything,” she 
thought, “I ’ll be knocked off my seat with a compli- 
ment.” 

But Paul had only wanted to tell her ; it seemed nec- 
essary that she should know something of her value. 
That done, he was content to drive on in dreaming si- 
lence, while the pair of them watched the veld grow 
momentarily lighter, its bare earth, the very hue and 
texture of barrenness, spreading and widening before 
them like water spilt on a floor. The stronger light 
that showed it to them revealed only a larger vacancy, 
a void extending where the darkness had stood like a 
presence. Beside the cart, and no more than a dozen 
yards away, a heavy bird suddenly uttered a cry and 
spouted up into the air, with laborious wings, flapping 
noisily. It rose perhaps thirty feet, with an appearance 
of great effort, whistled and sank again forthwith. The 
girl laughed; it was such a futile performance. 

“What was that?” she asked. 

31 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“A lark,” was the answer, and Paul turned his eyes 
to the east. “Look!” he bade her, pointing. 

Over the horizon which was like a black bar, set rigid 
against the heavens, stood the upper edge of the sun, 
naked and red, — a fiery eye, cocked arrogantly over 
the sky-line. About it, the very air seemed flooded 
with color, and the veld reflected it in dull gleams of 
red. 

“And there!” said Paul again, pointing ahead. 

They were at the top of a gentle slope, so gradual that 
it had made no break in the flat prospect of ten min- 
utes ago, and before them, and still so far off that it 
had the appearance of a delicate and elaborate toy, 
stood the Sanatorium. In that diamond clearness of 
air, every detail of it was apparent. Its beautiful se- 
rene front, crowned by old Dutch gables mounting in 
steps to the height of the rooftree, faced them, frank 
and fair, over the shadowy reticence of the stone-pil- 
lared stoep. Beyond and behind it, the roof of the 
farm, Paul’s home, stood in a dim perspective. 

“Is that it?” asked Miss Harding. “Where I am 
going, I mean.” 

“Yes,” said Paul. 

“It ’s very beautiful,” she said. 

He smiled contentedly. “I was sure you would say 
that , ’ 9 he replied. “I am so glad you have come here. ’ ’ 

Miss Harding regarded him doubtfully, but decided 
that no rebuke was necessary. 

“Yes,” she said, soberly. “It ought to give my 
lungs a chance.” 

Paul flicked the long lash towards the off horse again, 
and spoke no more till he brought the cart to a stand- 
still at the foot of the fan-shaped flight of steps that 
32 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


led up to the door on the stoep. The big house was 
voiceless and its windows blank; he was preparing to 
call out when the front door opened, uncovering a vista 
of a stone corridor within, simple and splendid, and 
there emerged Mrs. Jakes to the glory of the new day. 
She crossed the stoep, challenging the dignity of smooth 
cold stone with her little black figure of ceremony and 
her amiable, empty face of formal welcome. 

“Miss Harding ?” she enquired. “I scarcely ex- 
pected you so early. Isn’t it charming weather?” 

Paul helped the girl to alight, and watched the two 
women as they stood, before entering the house, and 
exchanged perfunctory civilities. 

“And now, to see your room,” said Mrs. Jakes at 
last, and let her pass. “Isn’t it fortunate that the 
rain has held off so nicely?” 

Her small voice tinkled indefatigably, and she worked 
through all the motions of hospitable politeness. But 
behind her smile her eyes were haggard and stale, and 
Paul thought that she looked at the girl, as they went 
in, with the very hate of envy. 


33 


CHAPTER III 


I N the years of his innocence, when the art and 
practice of medicine were rich with enticements 
like a bride, Dr. Jakes had taken his dreams in hand to 
mold them to the shape of his desire. A vision had 
beckoned to him across the roofs and telegraph wires 
of South London, where he scuffled for a livelihood as 
the assistant of a general practitioner; and when he 
fixed his eyes upon it, it spread and took shape as a 
great quiet house, noble and gray, harboring within its 
sober walls the atmosphere of distinguished repose 
which goes with a practice of the very highest class. 
Nothing of all its sumptuous appointment was quite so 
clear to him as that flavor of footfalls muffled and voices 
subdued; to summon it was to establish a refuge in 
which he might have brief ease between a tooth-drawing 
and a confinement. Kindly people who excused a cer- 
tain want of alacrity in the little doctor by the reflec- 
tion that he was called out every night might have 
saved their charity; his droop, his vacancy were only 
a screen for the splendid hush and shadow of that great 
visionary mansion. It was peopled, too, with many dim 
folk, resident patients in attitudes of relaxation; and 
among them, delicate and urbane, went Dr. Jakes, the 
sweet and polished vehicle of healing for the pulmo- 
nary complaints of the well-bred. Nor was there lack- 
ing a lady, rather ghostlike and faint in conformity with 
the dreamer’s ideal of the highest expression of a lady- 
34 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


like quality, but touched, none the less, with warm fem- 
ininity, an angel and a houri in one, and answering, in 
the voice of refinement, to the title of Mrs. Jakes. 

She had no Christian name then ; she was a haunting 
mellowness, a presence delicate and uplifting. In the 
murk of the early morning, after a night spent behind 
drawn blinds in a narrow, tragic room, where another 
human being entered the world between his hands, he 
would go home along empty furtive streets, conscious 
of the comfort of her and glad as with wine, and in such 
hours he would make it clear to himself that she, at any 
rate, should never bear a child. 

“No,” he would say, half aloud and very seriously. 
“No; it ’s not in the part. No!” 

That gracious and mild presence — he did not entirely 
lose it even when its place was assailed by the advent 
of the timid and amiable lady whom he married. She 
was a daughter of the landed interest ; her father owned 
“weekly property” about Clapham Junction, two streets 
of forlorn little houses, which rang day and night with 
the passing of trains, and furnished to the population a 
constant supply of unwelcome babies. Dr. Jakes knew 
the value of property of that kind, and perhaps his 
knowledge did something to quicken his interest in a 
sallow, meager girl whom he encountered in the house 
of his employer. She brought him a thousand pounds 
in money, means ready to his hand to anchor the old 
vision to earth and run it on commercial lines; it puz- 
zled him a little that the vision no longer responded 
to his summons so readily as of old. It had degener- 
ated from an inspiration to a mere scheme, best ex- 
pressed in the language of the prospectus; the fine zest 
of it was gone beyond recovery. There was no recap- 

35 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


turing its gentle languors, the brooding silence of it; 
still less was it possible when, by the mere momentum 
of his plans, he had moved to South Africa and found 
him a house, to reproduce that reposefulness as the main 
character of the establishment. Such effects as he 
gained, during the brief strenuousness that he mani- 
fested on taking possession, were the merest caricatures 
of the splendid original, mocking his impotence. The 
thousand pounds, too, which at first had some of the 
fine, vague, inexhaustible quality of a dream, proved in- 
elastic, and by the time the baby came, Dr. Jakes was 
already buying whisky by the case. The baby was a 
brief incident, a caller rather than a visitor, so ephem- 
eral that it was scarcely a nuisance before it departed 
again in search of a peace less dependent on the arrange- 
ment of furniture than that which Dr. Jakes had sought 
to bring into being. 

All life is a compromise; between the dream and the 
exigencies of Dr. Jakes’ position the Sanatorium had 
emerged. The fine, simple, old house had an air of its 
own, which no base use could entirely destroy. Its flat 
front, pedestaled upon a wide, flagged stoep, faced to 
the southeast and made a stronghold of shade in the 
noonday vehemence of the sun. Its rooms were great 
and low, with wide solemn windows regarding the mo- 
notony of the level veld; they stood between straight 
corridors where one’s footsteps rang as one walked. 
The art of its builders had so fashioned it that it stood 
on the naked ground like a thing native to it, not in- 
terrupting nor affronting that sweep of vacant miles, 
but enhancing it. The stolid Dutch builders knew how 
to make their profit out of wide horizons. They had 
conceived a frame for lives which should ripen in face 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of the Karoo, gleaming on its barrenness a measure of 
its tranquillity. They built a home ; and of it Dr. Uakes 
had made a Home. 

There remained yet, of all the decorous and ceremonial 
processes which were to maintain and give color to the 
life of the Sanatorium as he had conceived it of old, 
only one function. The two men patients who were 
left to him did as they pleased in most respects, but if 
they took tea in the afternoon they took it from Mrs. 
Jakes in the drawing-room after an established usage, 
with formal handing to and fro of plates and cups in 
the manner of civilized society. Jakes was seldom too 
unwell to be present at this function, and it was here, 
with his household at his back, that Margaret saw him 
first. 

Weariness had come upon her with the rush of an 
overtaking pursuer as Mrs. Jakes brought her into the 
house and away from the spreading dawn, and that 
lady had cut short the forms of politeness to bid her 
go to bed. She woke to the warmth of afternoon and 
the glow of its sun slanting upon the floor of her room 
and was aware at once of a genial presence. At the 
window a tall, stout Kafir woman, her head bound in a 
red and yellow handkerchief in a fashion which re- 
minded Margaret of pictures of pirates, was tweaking 
the tails of the spring-blinds and taking delight in 
watching them run up with a whir and click. She 
turned at the sound of Margaret’s movement, and 
flashed a brilliant smile upon her. 

4 ‘Missis sleeping too long,” she observed. “Tea 
now.” 

The mere good humor of her was infectious and Mar- 
garet smiled in return. 


37 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Who are you?” she asked. 

“Me? Fat Mary,” was the answer. She laughed 
easily, willing to make or be a joke according to Mar- 
garet’s humor. “Fat Mary, because — ” she sought for 
a word in the unfamiliar English and then gave it up. 
“Because,” she repeated, and traced her ample circum- 
ference with a black finger. “You see?” 

“I see,” said Margaret, and prepared to get up. 

Her long sleep had restored her and there was com- 
fort, too, in waking to the willing humanity of Fat 
Mary’s smiles, instead of to the starched cuffs and 
starched countenance of some formal trained and me- 
chanical nurse. Fat Mary was not a deft maid ; she was 
too easily amused at niceties of the toilet, and Margaret 
could not help feeling that she regarded the process of 
dressing as a performance which she could discuss later 
with her friends; but at least she was interested. She 
revolved helpfully about the girl, to the noise of bumped 
furniture and of large bare feet scraping on the mats, 
like a bulky planet about a wan and diminutive sun, 
and made mistakes and laughed and was buoyant and 
alight with smiles — all with a suggestion of gentle and 
reverent playfulness such as a more than usually grown 
person might use with a child. 

“Too much clothes,” was her final comment, when 
Margaret at last was ready and stood, slim and sober, 
under her inspection. “Like bundles,” she added, 
thoughtfully. “But Missis is skinny.” 

“Where do we go now?” asked Margaret. 

“Tea,” replied Fat Mary, and led the way down- 
stairs by a wide and noble staircase to the gray shadows 
of the stone hall. There was a simple splendor about 
the house which roused the connoisseur in Margaret, a 
38 


FLOWER O’ THE PEA'CH 


grandeur which was all of proportion and mass, and 
the few articles of furniture which stood about were dim 
and shabby in contrast to it. She had only time to 
note so much when Fat Mary opened a door for her, and 
she was facing across a wide room to broad windows 
flooded with sunlight and aware of Mrs. Jakes rising 
from behind a little tea-table and coming forward to 
meet her. Two men, a young one and an old one, rose 
from their chairs near the window as she entered, and a 
third was standing on the hearth-rug, with his back to 
the empty hearth. 

‘ ‘Quite rested now?” Mrs. Jakes was asking. 
* ‘You Ve had a nice long sleep. Let me introduce the 
doctor. Eustace — this is Miss Harding.” 

Dr. Jakes advanced from the hearth-rug; Margaret 
thought he started forward rather abruptly as his name 
was spoken. He gave her a loose, hot hand. 

“Charmed,” he said in a voice that was not quite 
free from hoarseness. “We were just out of ladies, 
Miss Harding. This is a great pleasure; a great pleas- 
ure.” 

“Thank you,” murmured Margaret vaguely. 

He was a short plump man, with a big head and 
round spectacles that gave him the aspect of a large, de- 
liberate bird. He was dressed for the afternoon in 
formal black, the uniform of his calling, though the 
window framed shimmering vistas of heat. He peered 
up at her with a sort of appeal on his plump, amiable 
face, as though he were conscious of that quality in him 
which made the girl shrink involuntarily while he held 
her hand, which no decent austerity of broadcloth 
could veil from her scrutiny. There was something 
about him at once sleepy and tormented, the state in 
39 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

which a man lies all day full-dressed upon a bed and 
goes habitually unbuttoned. It was the salient char- 
acter in him, and he seemed to search her face in a faint 
hope that she would not recognize it. He dropped her 
hand with a momentary knitting of his brows like the 
ghost of despair, and talked on. 

“It ’s the air we depend on,” he told her. “Won- 
derful air here, Miss Harding — the breath of healing, 
you know. It doesn’t suit me, but then I ’m not here 
for my health.” 

He laughed uncertainly, and ceased abruptly when 
he saw that no one laughed with him. He was like a 
child in disgrace trying to win and conciliate a circle 
of remorseless elders. 

Mrs. Jakes interrupted with a further introduction. 
While the doctor spoke, she had been standing by like 
an umpire. “Mr. Ford,” she said now, and the younger 
of the two men by the window bowed to her without 
speaking across the tea-table. His back was to the win- 
dow and he stood silhouetted against the golden haze 
which filled it, and Margaret saw only that he was tall 
and slender and moved with easy deliberation. 

“Mr. Samson,” said Mrs. Jakes next. 

This was the elder man. He came forward to her, 
showing a thin, sophisticated old face with cloudy white 
eyebrows, and shook hands in a pronounced manner. 

“Ah, you come like a gleam of sunshine,” he an- 
nounced, in a thin voice that was like a piece of bra- 
vado. “A gleam of sunshine, by gad ! We ’re not much 
to look at, Miss Harding; a set of crocks, you know — 
bellows to mend, and all that sort of thing, but, by gad, 
we ’re English, and we ’re glad to see a countrywoman. ’ ’ 

He cocked his white head at her gallantly and strad- 
40 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

died his legs in their neat gray trousers with a stiff 
swagger. 

“My mother was Irish,” observed Mrs. Jakes brightly. 
“But Miss Harding must have some tea.” 

Mr. Samson skipped before to draw out a chair for 
her, and Margaret was established at Mrs. J akes ’ elbow. 
The doctor came across the room to hand her bread and 
butter; that done, he retired again to his place on the 
hearth-rug and to his cup, lodged upon the mantel- 
shelf. It seemed that this was his place, outside the 
circle by the window. 

“Charming weather we ’re having,” announced Mrs. 
Jakes, conscientiously assailing an interval of silence. 
“If it only lasts!” 

Mr. Samson, with his back to the wall and his teacup 
wavering in his thin hand, snorted. 

“Weather!” he said. “Ya-as, we do get weather. 
’Bout all we do get here, — eh, Jakes?” 

Behind Margaret’s back the doctor’s teaspoon clinked 
in his saucer, and he said something indistinct, in which 
the words “wonderful air” alone reached her. She 
hitched her chair a pace sideways, so as to see him. 

Mrs. Jakes was looking over her with the acute eyes 
of a shopper which took in and estimated each detail 
of her raiment. 

“I suppose, now,” she remarked thoughtfully, “in 
England, the spring fashions were just coming out.” 

“I don’t know, really,” Margaret answered. “When 
I left, the principal wear seemed to be umbrellas. It ’s 
been an awful winter — rain every day.” 

“Aha!” Mr. Samson returned to the charge. 
“Rain, eh? Cab-wheels squirting mud at you all along 
the street, eh? Trees blubbering over the railings like 
41 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


bally babies, eh? Women bun chin’ up their skirts and 
hoppin’ over the puddles like dicky-birds, eh? I know, 
I know ; don ’t I just know ! How ’d you like a mouth- 
ful of that air, eh, Ford? Bad for the lungs — yes! 
But good, deuced good for the heart.’ ’ 

The young man in the window raised his head when 
he was addressed and nodded. From the hearth-rug 
Dr. Jakes murmured audibly: “Influenza.” 

“That of course,” said Mrs. Jakes indulgently. 
“Were there many people in town, Miss Harding?” 

“People!” Margaret was mystified for the moment. 
“Oh, yes, I think so.” 

She was puzzled by the general attitude of the others 
towards the little doctor ; it was a matter into which she 
had yet to be initiated. It was as though there existed a 
tacit understanding to suffer his presence and keep 
an eye upon him. It conveyed to her a sense that these 
people knew things about him which would not bear 
telling, and held the key to his manner of one dully 
afflicted. When he moved or managed to make some 
small clatter in setting his cup on the mantel-shelf, Mrs. 
Jakes turned a swift eye upon him, inspected him sus- 
piciously and turned away again. If he spoke, the 
person addressed seemed to turn his remark over and 
examine it for contraband meanings before making a 
perfunctory answer. He was like a prisoner handi- 
capped by previous convictions or a dog conscious of a 
bad name. When he managed to catch the girl’s eye, 
he gave her weak, hopeful, little smiles, and subsided 
quickly if any one else saw him, as though he had 
been caught doing some forbidden thing. The thing 
troubled her a little. Her malady had made a sharp 
interruption in her life and she had come to the Karoo 
42 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


in the sure hope that there she would be restored and 
given a warrant to return finally to her own world 
and deal with it unhampered. The doctors who had 
bidden her go had spoken confidently of an early cure ; 
they were smooth men who made a good show of their 
expert knowledge. She had looked to find such a man 
at her journey’s end, a doctor with the marks of a doc- 
tor, his social adroitness, his personal strength and 
style, his confidence and superiority to the weaknesses 
of diseased flesh. This little man, dazed and dumb, 
standing apart like a child who has been put in the 
corner, did not realize her expectations. If medical 
skill, the art and dexterity of a physician, dwelt in him, 
they had, she reflected, fallen among thieves. 

“You have only three patients here now?” she asked 
Mrs. Jakes. 

“At present,” answered Mrs. Jakes. “It ’s a con- 
venient number. The doctor, you see, can give them 
so much more attention than if there were a houseful. 
Yes, it ’s really better for everybody.” 

As she finished, Margaret looked up and caught the 
eye of the young man, Ford, fixed upon her, as though 
he watched to see how she would take it. He was a tall 
youth with a dark impassive face and level brows, and 
his malady announced itself in a certain delicacy of 
coloring and general texture and in attitudes which 
slacked naturally to invalid languors. While the others 
talked, he sat on the ledge of the window, looking out 
to the veld prostrate under the thresh of the sun. In 
any talkative assembly, the silent man is at an advan- 
tage, and this tall youth seemed to sit without the little 
circle of desultory tongues and dwarf it by his mere 
aloofness. His glance now seemed to convey a hint to 
43 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


her to accept, to pass over, things that needed explana- 
tion and to promise revelations at a more fitting 
time. 

“You see,” Mrs. Jakes continued, when Margaret had 
murmured noises of acquiescence; “you see, each pa- 
tient requires his individual attention. And — ” she 
sank her voice to a confidential undertone — “he ’s not 
strong .” 

She nodded past Margaret’s shoulder at Jakes, who 
was drinking from his cup with precautions against 
noise. He caught her look over the rim of it and 
choked. Ford smiled faintly and turned to the window 
again. 

“The Karoo does n’t suit him a bit,” Mrs. Jakes went 
on. ‘ ‘ Too bracing, you know. He ’s often quite ill. 
But he won’t leave.” 

“Why?” asked Margaret. The doctor was busy with 
his handkerchief, removing the traces of the accident 
from his waistcoat. 

Mrs. Jakes looked serious. “Duty,” she replied, and 
pursed her pale lips. “He considers it his duty to re- 
main here. It ’s his life-work, you know.” 

Ford’s eye caught Margaret’s again, warning and in- 
viting. “It ’s — it ’s very unselfish of him,” she said. 

“Yes!” said Mrs. Jakes. “It is.” And she nodded 
at Margaret as much as to ask, “And now , what have 
you got to say?” 

The doctor managed the tea stains to his satisfaction 
and came across the room, replacing the cup and saucer 
on the table with a hand that was not quite steady. In 
the broad light of the window, he had a strained look; 
one familiar with such matters would have known that 
the man was raw and tense with the after effects of 
44 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


heavy drinking. He looked down at Margaret with an 
uncertain smile. 

“I must have a little talk with Miss Harding / 9 he 
said. “ We must find out how matters stand. Will you 
bring her to my study presently, my dear?” 

“In a quarter of an hour?” suggested Mrs. Jakes. 
He nodded. Ford did not turn from his idle gazing 
through the window and old Samson did not cease from 
looking at him with an arrogant fixity that seemed on 
the point of breaking into spoken denunciations. He 
looked from one to the other with a hardy little smile, 
then sighed and went out. 

His going was the signal for the breaking up of the 
gathering. Old Samson coughed and walked off and 
Ford disappeared with him. 

“And what would you care to do now?” asked Mrs. 
Jakes of Margaret. “I have some very good views of 
Windsor, if you like. You know Windsor?” 

Margaret shook her head. Windsor had no attrac- 
tions for her. What interested her much more was 
the fact that this small, bleak woman was on the de- 
fensive, patently standing guard over privacies of her 
life, and acutely ready to repel boarders who might en- 
deavor to force an intimacy upon her. It was plain 
in the rigor of her countenance, set into a mask, and in 
each tone of her voice. Margaret had yet to undergo 
her interview with Dr. Jakes in his study, and till that 
was over, and she definitely enlisted for or against him, 
Mrs. Jakes would preserve an armed neutrality. 

“I think,” said Margaret, “I ’d like to go out to the 
veranda. ’ ’ 

“We call it the stoep,” corrected Mrs. Jakes. “A 
Dutch word, I believe. By all means ; you T1 probably 
45 


FLOWER 0 ? THE PEACH 

find Mr. Ford there and I will call you when the doctor 
is ready.” 

The stone hall held its cathedral shadows inviolate, 
and from it Margaret went forth to a westering sun that 
filled the earth with light, and painted the shadow of the 
house in startling black upon the ground. She stood 
between the square pillars with their dead and ruined 
vines and looked forth at a land upon which the light 
stood stagnant. It was as though the Karoo challenged 
her conception of it. She had seen it last vague with 
the illusions of the dawn, hemmed in by mists and shad- 
ows that seemed to veil the distances and what they 
held. Now these were stripped from it to reveal only 
a vast nakedness, of red and red-brown and gray, all 
ardent in the afternoon sun. The shadows had prom- 
ised a mystery, the light discovered a void. It ran 
from before her yet in a single sweep to a horizon 
upon which the blue of remote hills was a faint blur, 
and in all the far prospect of it there was not one 
roof, no single interruption to its still level. Margaret, 
quickly sensitive to the quality of her environment, 
gazed at it almost with a sense of awe, baffled by the fact 
that no words at her command were pliant enough to fit 
it. It was not “wild” nor “desolate” nor even “beau- 
tiful”; none of the words allotted to landscapes, with 
which folk are used to label the land they live upon, 
could be stretched to the compass of this great staring 
vacancy. It was outside of language; it struck a note 
not included in the gamut of speech. “Inhuman” came 
nearest to it, for the salient quality of it was something 
that bore no relation to the lives — and deaths — of men. 

A sound of coughing recalled her from her contem- 

46 


FLOWER O' THE PEACH 


plation of it, and she walked along the stoep towards 
it. Behind a pillar near the corner of the house, Ford 
sat on a camp-stool, with a little easel before him, and 
smudged with his thumb at the paint on a small canvas. 

He looked up at her with no token of welcome, but 
rather as though he withdrew himself unwillingly from 
his picture. 

“Well?” he said, motioning with his head at the wide 
prospect before them. “What d'you think of it?” 

“Oh, a lot,” replied Margaret, refusing to commit 
herself with adjectives. “Can I see?” 

He sat back to give her room to look. She had in her 
time spent sincere days at one of the art schools which 
help Kensington to its character and was prepared to 
appreciate expertly. It was a sketch in oils, done 
mostly with the thumb and palette-knife, a croitte of the 
most obvious — paint piled in ridges as though the artist 
would have built his subject in relief upon the can- 
yas, perspective improvised by the light of nature, cru- 
dities, brutalities of color, obtruded in the effort for 
breadth. They were all there. She stared into this 
mist of blemishes in an effort to see what the painter 
saw and could not set down, and had to give it up. 

In the art school it had been the custom to tell one's 
fellows the curt, unwelcome truth. 

“You can't paint,” said Margaret. 

“Oh, I know that,” answered Ford. “You weren't 
looking for that, were you?” 

“For what, then?” asked Margaret. 

He hitched himself up to the canvas again, and began 
to smudge with his thumb at a mess of yellow ocre. 

“There 's something in it that I can see,” he said. 

47 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I ’ve been watching this — this desert for more than a 
year, you know, and I try to get in what I see in it. 
You can’t see anything?” 

“No,” said Margaret. “But I did try.” She 
watched his unskilful handling of the ocre. “I could 
show you a thing or two, ’ ’ she suggested. 

She had all a woman’s love for technique, and might 
have been satisfied with more skill and less purpose. 
But Ford shook his head. 

“No, thank you,” he said. “It ’s not worth while. 
I ’m only painting for myself. I know what I mean 
by these messes I make; if I could paint more, I 
might n ’t be so pleased with it. ’ ’ 

“As you like, of course,” said Margaret, a little dis- 
appointed. 

He worked in silence for about a minute. 

“You didn’t like the looks of Dr. Jakes?” he sug- 
gested suddenly. “I saw you wondering at him in 
there. ’ ’ 

“Well,” Margaret hesitated. “He seemed rather out 
of it,” she answered. “Is there anything — wrong — * 
with him?” 

Ford was making an irreparable mess of his picture 
and did not look up. 

“Wrong?” he repeated. “Well, depends what you 
call wrong. He drinks.” 

“Drinks!” Margaret did not like the matter-of-fact 
way in which he said it. “Do you mean — ” 

“He ’s a drunkard — he goes to bed drunk. His 
nerves were like banjo strings this afternoon; he 
couldn’t keep his hands still. You noticed it? That 
was last night’s drinking;- he did n’t get to bed till day- 
light. I heard him struggling up the stairs, with Mrs. 

48 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Jakes whispering to him not to make a noise and help- 
ing him. That was just before you came.” 

“Poor thing!” 

“Yes — poor thing!” Ford looked up at the girl 
sharply. “You Ve got it, Miss Harding. It ’s Mrs. 
Jakes that suffers. Jakes has got his liquor, and that 
makes up to him for a lot. You and I, we Ve got — 
whatever we have got, little or much. Old Samson ’s 
got his memories and his pose; he gets along all right 
with them. But she ’s got nothing at all — only the feel- 
ing that she ’s managed to screen him and prop him 
and fooled people into thinking she ’s the wife of a de- 
cent man. That ’s all. ’ ’ 

“But,” said Margaret, “is he safe?” 

“Safe? Oh, I forgot that he was to see you in his 
study. He won’t reel about and fall down, if that ’s 
what you mean. That part of it is all done in private ; 
Mrs. Jakes gets the benefit of that. And as to his pa- 
tients, he really does know a little about lungs when 
he ’s sober, and there ’s always the air. Oh, he ’s safe 
enough . 9 9 

“It ’s dreadful,” said Margaret. She was at a loss; 
the men she knew did not get drunk. When they went 
to the bad, they chose different roads; this one seemed 
ankle-deep with defilement. She recalled Mrs. Jakes 
when she had come forth from the silent house to meet 
her in the chill dawn, and a vision flashed upon her of 
the vigil that must have been hers through the slow 
night, listening to the chink of bottle on glass and wait- 
ing, waiting in misery and fear to do that final office of 
helping the drunken man to his bed. Her primness, her 
wan gentility, her little affectations of fashion, seemed 
monstrously heroic in the light of that vision — she had 
4 49 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


carried them with her to the pit of her humiliation and 
brought them forth again unsullied, the spotless armor 
of a woman of no account. 

“You understand now?” asked Ford, watching her. 

“Yes,” answered Margaret, slowly. “But it fright- 
ens me. I wish I hadn’t got to see him in his study. 
What will he do ? ” 

“Hush!” said Ford. “Here comes Mrs. Jakes. 
Don’t let her hear you. He won’t do anything.” 

He fell to his work again, and Margaret turned to 
receive the doctor’s wife. 

“The doctor will see you now, Miss Harding,” said 
Mrs. J akes. ‘ ‘ Will you come with me?” 

She eyed the pair of them with a suspicion she could 
not altogether hide, and Ford was careful to hold an 
impassive face. 

“I am quite ready,” returned Margaret, nerving her- 
self for what had assumed the proportions of an ordeal, 
and went with her obediently. 

Jakes’ study was a small, rather dark room opening 
off the hall, in which the apparatus of his profession 
was set forth to make as much show as possible. His 
desk, his carpet, his leather chairs and bookcases did 
their best to counterfeit a due studiousness in his behalf, 
and a high shelf of blue and green bottles, with a mi- 
croscope among them, counteracted their effect by sug- 
gesting to the irreverent that here science w T as “skied” 
while practice was hung on the line. This first inter- 
view was a convention in the case of every new patient. 
Dr. Jakes always saw them alone as a matter of profes- 
sional honor. Mrs. Jakes would make a preliminary in- 
spection of him to assure herself and him that he was 
fit for it; old Mr. Samson, passing by the half-open 
50 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


door once, had seen her bending over him, smelling his 
breath critically; and then she would trust him to his 
patient’s good will and to the arbitrary Providence 
which ruled her world. 

“Miss Harding, Eustace,” she announced at the door 
of the study and motioned the girl to enter. 

The little doctor rose with bustling haste, and looked 
at her with melancholy eyes. There was a smell of eau 
de Cologne in the room, which seemed natural at the 
time to its rather comfortable shabbiness. 

“Sit down, sit down, Miss Harding,” he said, and 
made a business of thrusting forward one of the leather 
chairs to the side of his desk. Seated, she faced him 
across a corner of it. In the interval that had elapsed 
since she had seen him at tea, he seemed to have recov- 
ered himself somewhat. Some of the strain was gone 
from him, and he was grave with a less effect of effort 
and discomfort. 

He put his open hand upon a paper that lay before 
him. 

“It was Dr. Mackintosh who ordered you south?” he 
asked. “A clever man, Miss Harding. I have his 
letter here about your case. Now, I want you to answer 
a question or two before we listen to that lung of 
yours. ’ ’ 

“Certainly,” said Margaret. 

She was conscious of some surprise that he should 
move so directly to the matter in hand. It relieved her 
of vague fears with which Ford’s warning had filled 
her, and as he went on to question her searchingly, her 
nervousness departed. The little man who fell so far 
short of her ideal of a doctor knew his business; even 
a patient like herself, with all a patient’s prejudice 
51 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


and ignorance, conld tell by the line his questions took 
that he had her case by heart. He was clearly on 
familiar ground, a fact which had power to reassure 
her, and she told herself that, after all, his resigned, 
plump face was not entirely repulsive. 

“A queer little man,” she said to herself. ‘ ‘Queer 
enough to be a genius, perhaps.” 

4 ‘And, now, please, we ’ll just hear how things really 
are. No, I don’t think you need undo anything. Yes, 
like that. ’ ’ 

As he explored her chest and side with the stetho- 
scope, his head was just under her face, the back of it 
rumpled like the head of some huge and clumsy baby. 
It was fluffy and innocent and comical, and Margaret 
smiled above him. Every one has his best aspect, or 
photographers would crowd the workhouses and the 
manufacturers of pink lampshades would starve. Dr. 
J akes should have made more of the back of his head and 
less of his poor, uncertain face. 

But he was done with the stethoscope at last, and as he 
raised his head his face came close to hers and the taint 
of his breath reached her nostrils. Suddenly she under- 
stood the eau de Cologne. 

“Well,” he said, sitting down again; “now we know 
where we are.” 

He had seen her little start of disgust and annoyance 
at the smell of him, and kept his eyes on the paper 
before him, playing with a corner of it between his fin- 
gers as he spoke. 

“Will I get well?” asked Margaret, directly. 

“Yes,” he answered, without hesitating. 

“I ’m glad,” she said. “I ’m awfully glad. Thank 
you.” 


52 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


* ‘ I ’ll see about your treatment, ’ ’ he said, without rais- 
ing his eyes. “But I needn’t keep you now. Only — ” 

“Yes?” 

“You mustn’t be afraid,” he continued. “Not of 
anything. Do you understand? You mustn’t be 
afraid. ’ ’ 

Margaret wished he would look up. “I ’m not 
afraid,” she answered. “Really I ’m not.” 

Dr. Jakes sighed and rose slowly. The trouble had 
descended on him again, and he looked sorry and dull. 

“That ’s right,” he said without heartiness, and 
moved to open the door for her. His appealing eyes 
dwelt on her for a moment. “This is n’t England,” he 
added, with a heavy deliberation. “We ’re none of us 
here because we like it. But — but don’t be afraid, 
Miss Harding.” 

“I ’m sure there ’s nothing to be afraid of,” an- 
swered Margaret, moved — he was so mournful in his 
shame. He bowed to her, a slow peck of his big head, 
and she went. 

In the hall, Mrs. Jakes met her and challenged her. 

“Well,” she said; “and what does the doctor say 
about you ? ’ ’ 

Margaret smiled at her. “He says I shall get well, 
and I believe he knows, ’ ’ she answered. 

It was as though some stiffening in Mrs. Jakes had 
suddenly resigned its functions. She softened before 
the girl’s eyes. 

“Of course he knows,” she said contentedly. “Of 
course he knows. My dear, he really does know. ’ ’ 

“I ’m sure he does,” agreed Margaret. 

Mrs. Jakes put a hand on her arm. “I feel certain 
we ’re going to be friends,” she said. “You ’re so 
53 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


pretty and — and distinguished. And — and what a 
pretty f rock you ’ve got ! ’ ’ 

She hesitated an instant, and was very timid and 
humble. 

“I should love to see you unpack,” she said earnestly. 


54 


CHAPTER IV 


T HE strength of a community, of almost any com- 
munity, is its momentum; it is easier to go on 
than to pull up, even though its progress be erratic 
and the tear exceed the wear. Dr. Jakes’ Sanatorium 
was a house divided against itself and poised for a 
downfall; but the course of its daily life had yet cur- 
rent enough to pick up a newcomer and float him from 
his independent foothold. The long languors of its 
days, its deep whispering nights, were opiates for the 
critical and exacting, so that before they had made it 
clear to themselves that this was no place for them, 
they were absorbed, merged in, the eventless quiet 
of the house and its people. For some — for most of 
them, indeed — there came at last a poignant day when 
Paul and his tall horses halted at the door to carry 
them to the station, and it was strange with what a 
reluctance they rode finally across the horizon that rose 
up to shut the big gray house from view, and how they 
hesitated and frowned and talked curtly when the 
station opened out before them and offered them the 
freedom of the world. And for the others, those who 
traveled the longer journey and alone, there stood upon 
the veld, a mile from the house, an enclosure of barbed 
wire — barbed against — what? For them came stout 
packing cases, which made the Kafirs sweat by their 
weight, and being opened, yielded some small cross of 
marble, black-lettered with name and dates and sorrow- 
55 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


f ul texts ; the lizards sunned themselves all day upon 
these monuments, for none disturbed them. 

At the Sanatorium, day began in the cool of morning 
with .a padding of bare feet in the long corridors and 
the fresh wakeful smell of coffee. Africa begins its 
day with coffee; it is the stirrup-cup of the country. 
Margaret opened her eyes to the brightness of morn- 
ing and the brisk presence of Fat Mary, radiant across 
her adventurously held tray of coffee cups and re- 
flecting the joy of the new light in her exulting smile. 
She had caught from Mrs. 'Jakes the first rule of polite 
conversation, though none of the subsequent ones, and 
she always began with a tribute of words to the weather. 

“Sun burning plenty; how ’s Missis?” was her usual 
opening gambit. 

The wide-open windows flushed the room with air, 
sweet from the night’s refreshment; and Margaret 
came to value that hour between the administration of 
coffee and the time for rising ; it was the bonne bouche 
of the day. From her pillows she could lie and see 
the far mists making a last stand against the shock 
of the sun, breaking and diffusing before his attack 
and yielding up wider views of the rusty plain at each 
minute, till at last the dim blue of infinitely remote 
hills thickened the horizon. At the farm, a mile away, 
figures moved about and among the kraals, wonderfully 
and delicately clear in that diamond air which stirred 
her blood like wine. She could even make out Paul; 
the distance robbed him of nothing of his deliberate, 
dreamy character as he went to and fro with his air 
of one concerned with greater things than the mere 
immediacies of every day. There was always a sug- 
gestion about him of one who stoops from cloudy alti- 
56 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


tudes of preoccupation to the little concerns of men, 
and towards Margaret he wore the manner of having 
a secret to divulge which was difficult to name. She 
met him sometimes on the veld paths between the two 
houses, and each time he seemed to draw near the criti- 
cal moment of confession and fall back from it baffled. 
And though Margaret in her time had heard many con- 
fidences from many men and had made much progress in 
the subtle arts of the confidante, this was a case beyond 
her powers. The deftly sympathetic corkscrew failed to 
unbottle whatever moved in his mind; he evidently 
meant to bide his time. Meanwhile, seen from afar, he 
was a feature of the before-breakfast hour, part of 
the upholstery of the morning. 

It was when she heard Mr. Samson pass her door 
on his way to the bath that she knew the house was 
definitely awake. He wore Turkish slippers that an- 
nounced him as he went with the slap-slap of their 
heels upon the floor. Once, putting her head forth 
from the door incautiously to scout for Fat Mary she 
had beheld him, with his bath-robe girt about him by 
its tasseled cord and bath towels round his neck, going 
faithfully to the ritual initiation of his daily round, 
a figure consistent with the most correct gentlemanly 
tradition. The loose robe and the towels gave him 
girth and substance, and on the wary, intolerant old 
face, with its gay white mustache, was fixed a look of 
serious purpose. Mr. Samson never trifled with his 
toilet, by gad — what? Later, on his return, she would 
hear his debonair knock on Ford’s door. “Out with 
you!” he would pipe — he never varied it. “Out with 
you ! Bright and early, my boy — bright and early — 
what?” An answer growled from within contented 
57 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


him, and he would turn in at his room, there to build 
up the completed personality which he offered daily 
to the world. It took time, too, and a meek Kafir 
valet, for a man is not made and perfected in a minute 
or two, and the result never failed to justify the labor. 
When next he appeared it would be as a member of the 
upper classes, armored and equipped, treading the stoep 
in a five-minutes’ constitutional in a manner that at 
once dignified and lightened it. When one looked at 
him, one thought instinctively of exclusive clubs, of 
fine afternoons in Piccadilly, of the landed interest and 
the Church of England. One judged that his tailor 
loved him. He had a cock of the head, with a Hom- 
burg hat upon it, and a way of swelling his neck over 
the edge of his conservative collar, that were the very 
ensign of gallantry and spirit. It was only when he 
coughed that the power abandoned him, and it was 
shocking and pitiful to see the fine flower of gentility 
rattled like a dice-box in the throes of his malady and 
dropped at last against a wall, wheezing and gasping 
for breath in the image of a weak and stricken old 
man. 

“Against the ropes,” he would stammer shakily as 
he gathered himself together again, sniffling into his 
beautiful handkerchief. “Got me against the ropes, it 
did. Damn it — what?” 

He suffered somewhat in his aggressive effect from 
the lack of victims. He had exhausted his black valet’s 
capacity for being blasted by a glance, and had fallen 
back on Dr. Jakes. The wretched little doctor had to 
bear the brunt of his high severity when he came among 
his patients racked and quivering from his restless 
bed, and his bleared and tragic eyes appealed in vain 
58 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


for mercy from that high priest of correct demeanor. 
Mr. Samson looked at him as a justice of the peace, 
detained upon the bench when he should be at lunch 
and conscious that his services to the State are gratui- 
tous, might look upon a malefactor who has gone to 
the length of being without visible means of subsistence. 
The doctor might wriggle and smile painfully and seek 
the obscurity of corners, but it could not serve him; 
there was no getting out of range of that righteous and 
manly battery while he stayed in the same room with 
it. Once, however, he spiked its guns. The glare across 
the tea-table, the unspoken sheer weight of rebuke and 
condemnation, seemed to suddenly break up the 
poisoned fog that clouded his faculties, and he lifted 
his face, shining a little as with sweat, in a quick look 
at Mr. Samson. Margaret, who saw it, recognized it; 
just so he had looked in his study when he questioned 
her on her case and bent his mind to the consideration 
of it. It was direct, expert, impersonal, the dehuman- 
ized scrutiny of the man whose trade is with flesh and 
blood. Something had stirred the physician in the 
marrow of the man, and from a judge and an execu- 
tioner of justice, a drawing-room hangman, Mr. Sam- 
son had become a case. At the beginning of it, Mrs. 
Jakes, unfailingly watchful, had opened her mouth to 
speak and save the situation, but she too saw in time 
and closed her mouth again. Mr. Samson glowered and 
the hectic in his thin cheeks burned brighter. 

“You Ve seen me before, Jakes !” he said, crisply. 

The little doctor nodded almost easily. “Your hand, 
please, ’ ' he said. 4 ‘ Thanks. ’ ’ 

His forefinger found the pulse and dwelt on it; he 
waited with lips pursed, frowning. 

59 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“As I thought,” he said, dropping the stringy white 
hand again. “Yes! I ’ll see you in the study, Mr. 
Samson, please — in half an hour.” 

Mr. Samson gulped but stood up manfully. He was 
at his best, standing, by reason of a certain legginess 
which had been taken into account in the design of his 
clothes, but now those clothes seemed big for him. 

“What is it?” he demanded, throwing his courage 
into his voice. 

Dr. Jakes warned him with an uplifted finger. 

“Sit down,” he said. “Keep quiet. I ’ll see you in 
half an hour. ’ ’ 

He looked round at Margaret and the rest of them 
thoughtfully and went back to his place by the mantel- 
piece, sighing. It was his signal to them that his brief 
display of efficiency was over, and as though to screen his 
retreat, Mrs. Jakes coughed and hoped loudly that the 
rain would hold off. 

But Mr. Samson made his way to a chair and sat down 
in it heavily, grasping its arms with his hands, and Mar- 
garet noticed for the first time that he was an old man. 

Apparently the thing that threatened Mr. Samson 
was not very serious, or else the doctor had found 
means to head it off in time, for though he went from 
the study to his bed, he was at breakfast next morn- 
ing, with a fastidious appetite and thereafter the course 
of his life remained unaltered. 

Breakfast at the Sanatorium was in theory a meal 
that might be taken at any hour from eight till half past 
eleven. In the days of his dream, Dr. Jakes had seen 
dimly silver dishes with spirit lamps under them and 
a house-party effect of folk dropping in as they came 
down and helping themselves. But Mrs. Jakes’ thou- 
60 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


sand pounds had stopped short of the silver dishes and 
Mrs. Jakes herself could not be restrained from attend- 
ing in person to see that the coffee was hot. Therefore, 
since it was not possible in any conscience to bind Mrs. 
Jakes to her post till noon, breakfast occurred between 
half-past eight and half-past nine. 

The freshness, the exuberance, of the morning were 
not for her ; already she wore the aspect of one who has 
done a stage of the day’s journey and shed the bloom 
of her vigor upon it. The sunlight, waxing like a tide 
in flood, was powerless to lift her prim, black-dressed 
personality from the level of its cares and functions. 
She made to each as he entered the same mechanical 
little bow across the crockery, smiled the same formal 
smile from the lips outwards and uttered the same small 
comment on the blaze of day that filled the earth with- 
out the window. She had her life trimmed down to 
a routine for convenience of handling; she was one of 
those people — they are the salt of the earth! — whose 
passions are monosyllabic, whose woes are inarticulate. 
The three who sat daily at meat with her knew and 
told each other that her composure, her face keyed 
up like an instrument to its pitch of vacant propriety, 
were a mask. Sometimes, even, there had been sounds 
in the night to assure them of it; occasionally Jakes, 
on his way to bed in the small hours, would slip on 
the stairs and bump down a dozen or so of them, and 
lie where he fell till he was picked up and set on his 
way again; there would be the rasp of labored breath 
as he was supported along the corridor, and the 
mumble of his blurred speech hushed by prayerful 
whispers. A door slammed, a low cry bitten off short, 
and then silence in the big house, and in the morning 
61 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Mrs. Jakes with her coffee pot and trivial tinkle of 
speech and treble armor of practised bearing against 
the pity of those who knew! The sheer truculence of 
it held them dumb; it was the courage of a swash- 
buckler, of a bravo, and it imposed on them the decorum 
of silence. 

The doctor, she gave them to understand, suffered 
from the climate. 

“He never was strong,” she would say, with her 
eyes fixed on the person addressed as though she would 
challenge him to dispute or question it. “Never! It ’s 
the sun, I think ; he suffers from his head, you 
know. He used to take aspirin for it when we were 
first married, but it doesn’t seem to do him any good 
now. ’ ’ 

The three of them would nod sympathetically and 
look hastily elsewhere, as though ashamed to be the spec- 
tators of her humiliation. 

Poor Mrs. Jakes ! Seven thousand miles from the 
streets of Clapham Junction, an exile from the cheeri- 
ness and security of its little decent houses, she held 
yet with a frail hand to the skirts of its beatitude. In 
the drawer in her bedroom which also contained Jakes’ 
dress suit, she kept in tissue paper and sincere regard 
a morocco-bound mausoleum of memory — an album. 
Only two or three times in Mr. Samson’s experience — 
and he had been an inmate of the Sanatorium for four 
years — had she brought it forth. Once was on the night 
before young Shaw died, and when no soothing would 
hold him at peace in his bed, he had lain still to look 
through those yellowing portraits and hear Mrs. Jakes 
tell how this one was doing very well as a job-master 
and that one had turned Papist. But Margaret Hard- 
62 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


ing had seen it. Mrs. ‘Jakes had sat on her bed, quell- 
ing Fat Mary with her eye, and seen her unpack her 
clothes, the frocks new from dressmakers and tailors in 
London, the hats of only a month ago. Margaret had 
been aided in buying them by a philosophic aunt who 
had recently given up vegetarianism on the advice of 
her hairdresser. “My child, play light,” had been the 
counsel of this relative. “Don’t surprise the natives; 
they never like it. No frills ; a vigorous vicarage style 
is what you want.” And she had brought considerable 
powers of personality and vocabulary to bear on Mar- 
garet’s choice, so that in the result there predominated 
a certain austerity of raiment which Margaret found 
unexciting. But Mrs. Jakes received them as canons 
of fashion, screwing up her mouth and nodding gravely 
as she mastered saliencies. 

“I can’t quite imagine them in these styles,” she said; 
“the people in the Park, I mean. I suppose it ’s this 
golf that ’s done it.” 

In return for the exhibition, she had shown Margaret 
her album. It had many thick pages with beveled gilt 
edges, each framing from one to six portraits or 
groups, and she had led her hearer through the lot 
of them, from the first to the last. They sat side by 
side on the bed in Mrs. Jakes’ room, and the album lay 
open on their laps, and Mrs. Jakes’ finger traveled like 
a pointer among the pictures while she elucidated them 
in a voice of quiet pride. These pale and fading faces, 
fixed to the order of the photographer in more than 
human smiles, with sleek and decorative hair and a 
show of clothes so patently reserved for Sundays, were 
neither pale nor faded for her. She knew the life be- 
hind them, their passions and their strength, and spoke 
63 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of them as she might have spoken had they been wait- 
ing in the next room. 

4 ‘ That ’s my sister, ’ ’ she said, her finger pausing. 
“Two years older than me, but she never married. 
And what she used to suffer from indigestion, words 
can’t tell. And here ’s my Aunt Martha — yes, she died 
seven years ago. My mother’s sister, you know. My 
mother was a Penfold — one of the Penfolds of Putney. 
You ’ve heard of them? Ah, and here ’s Bill Penfold, 
my cousin Bill. Poor Bill, he didn’t do well, ever. 
He had a fancy for me, once, or so they said, but my 
father never could bear him. No harm, you know, no 
real harm, but larky — sort of. This one? Oh, that ’s 
nobody — a Mr. Wrench, who used to collect for my 
father; he had a hair-lip. I didn’t like him.” 

The thick page turned, and showed on the other side 
a single cabinet portrait of a thin woman, with her head 
a little on one side. 

“My mother,” said Mrs. Jakes, and shifted the album 
that Margaret might see better. 

“She was a Penfold of Putney,” she said, gently. 
“I think she shows it, you know. A bit quiet and re- 
fined, especially about the eyes. Don’t you think so?” 

It was the picture of the wife of a robust and hardy 
man, Margaret thought, and as for the eyes and their 
slight droop, the touch of listlessness which bespeaks an 
acquired habit of patience and self-suppression, she had 
only to look up and they returned her look from the face 
of Mrs. Jakes. 

“And this?” she asked. 

Mrs. Jakes smiled quite brightly; the photograph was 
one of a baby. 

“That ’s little Eustace,” she answered, with no trace 
64 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of the softness of regret which had hushed her tone when 
she spoke of her mother. 4 ‘My little baby; he ’d have 
been a big boy now. He was like his father — very like. 
Everybody noticed it. And that” — her finger passed 
on — “is George Penfold, Sergeant-Major in the 
Guards. His widow married again, a gunner in the 
Navy.” 

No sorrow for little Eustace. He, at any rate, 
would never see his dreams dislimn and fail him; no 
wife would watch the slow night through for his un- 
steady step nor read the dishonor written in his eyes. 
The first of the crosses in the barbed wire enclosure, 
Mrs. J akes ’ empty and aching heart and her quick smile 
of triumph at his easy victory over all the snares of life 
— these and the faint, whitening photograph remained 
of little Eustace. Many a man leaves less when his 
time comes in South Africa. 

“The weather is holding up nicely,” she would say 
at breakfast. “Almost too fine, isn’t it? But I sup- 
pose we oughtn’t complain.” 

It was a meal over which one lingered, for with the 
end of it there closed the eventful period of the day. 
While it lasted, the Sanatorium was at its best; one 
saw one’s fellows in faint hues of glamour after the 
night’s separation and heard them speak with a sense 
of • receiving news. But the hour exhausted them of 
interest and one left the table, when all pretexts for 
remaining there had been expended, to face the empti- 
ness of a morning already stale. That, in truth, was 
the price one paid for healing, the wearing, smothering 
monotony of the idle days, when there was nothing 
to do and one saw oneself a part of the stagnation 
that ruled the place. Mrs. Jakes withdrew herself to 
5 65 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


become the motor of the domestic machinery, and till 
lunch time was not available for countenance and sup- 
port. Ford occupied himself gravely with his little 
canvases, plastering upon them strange travesties of 
landscape, and was busy and intent and impatient of 
interruption for long periods at a time, while Mr. Sam- 
son, keeping a sufficient offing from all human contact, 
alternately strutted to and fro upon the stoep in a 
short quarter-deck promenade of ten steps and a right 
about turn, and lay in a deck chair with a writing case 
upon his knee and wrote fitfully and with deep thought 
long, important looking letters which never reached the 
post. 

“You ’re feeling the need of something to do,” Ford 
told Margaret, when in desperation she came behind 
him and watched him modeling — as it seemed — in 
burnt sienna. “Why don’t you knit — or something?” 

“Knit?” said Margaret with huge scorn. 

“You ’ll come to it,” he warned her. “There was 
a chap here before you came who taught himself the 
harp. A nuisance he was, too, but he said he ’d have 
been a gibbering idiot without it. ’ ’ 

“That wasn’t saying much, perhaps,” retorted Mar- 
garet. 

“Oh, I don’t know. He was a barrister of sorts, I 
believe. Not many barristers who can play the harp, 
you know.” 

“For goodness’ sake, don’t knead the stuff like that!” 
cried Margaret, watching his thumb at work. “You ’re 
painting, not — not civil engineering! But what were 
you?” 

“Eh?” He looked up at her. 

66 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


4 4 Before you had to come here, I mean? Oh, do talk 
for a minute,’ ’ she begged. 

‘‘Sorry,” he said. “I was in the army.” 

“And was it rather awful to have to give up and 
nurse yourself ? ’ ’ 

“Well!” He glanced at her consideringly, as 
though to measure her intelligence. “It was rough,” 
he admitted. “You see, the army ’s not like barrister- 
ing, for instance. It ’s not a thing you can drop for a 
bit and then take up again ; once you ’re out, you ’re out 
for good.” He paused. “And I meant it,” he added. 

“Meant it?” 

“Yes, there ’s a chance nowadays for a chap with 
a turn for soldiering. There ’s a lot to know, you 
see, and, well — I was by way of knowing it. That ’s 
all.” 

He turned to his canvas again, but did not fall to 
work. Margaret saw his back, thin under his silk coat 
but flat and trim as a drilled man’s should be. 

“So for you, it meant the end of everything?” she 
suggested. 

“Looks like it, doesn’t it!” he answered. “Still 
— we ’ll see. They trained me and there ’s just a 
chance, in the event of a row, that they might have a 
use for me. They ’d be short of officers who knew the 
game. You see — ” 

He hitched sideways on his camp-stool so that he 
might make himself clear to her. 

“You see, the business of charging at the head of 
your men is a thing of the past, pretty nearly. All 
that gallery play is done away with. But take a hun- 
dred Tommies and walk ’em about for half a year, 
67 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

'dry-nurse ’em, keep them fed and healthy and mod- 
erately happy and as clean as you can, be something 
between an uncle and a schoolmaster to them, and have 
’em ready at the end of it to march forty miles in a day 
and then fight — that ’s an art in itself! In fact, it ’s 
a trade, and it can’t be learned in a week.” 

“I ’m perfectly sure it can’t,” agreed Margaret. 

‘ ‘ Well, that was my trade,” said Ford. “That’s 
where I ’ll come in when the band begins to play. 
See?” 

He nodded at her expressively but with finality. It 
was plain that he considered the subject drained dry, 
and only waited for her to go to return to the mysteries 
of art. 

“Oh, well,” sighed Margaret, and left him to it. 

Lunch lacked the character of breakfast. For one 
thing, it was impossible for three feeble people, de- 
barred from exercise, to arrive at a state of appetite 
during a morning of semi-torpor, with a prospect before 
them of an afternoon of the same quality. For an- 
other, tempers had endured the heat and burden of 
four hours of enforced idleness and emerged from the 
test frayed at the edges. 

This meant more labor for poor Mrs. Jakes, who 
could by no means allow the meal to be eaten in a bit- 
ter silence, and was driven by a stern sense of duty to 
keep up a dropping fire of small talk. Their sour 
faces, the grimness with which they passed the salt, 
filled her with nervous tremors, and she talked as a 
born hostess might talk to cover the confusion induced 
by an earthquake under the table, trembling but fluent 
to the last. There were times when her small, hesitat- 
ing voice wrought Margaret up to the very point of 
68 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


flat interventions. At one such moment, it was Ford 
who saved the situation. 

“Miss Harding / ’ he said, in a matter-of-fact way. 
“You are a pig!” 

Mrs. Jakes gasped and bounded in her chair, and old 
Mr. Samson choked. 

“And you,” replied Margaret with intensity, “are 
just a plain beast!” 

“That ’s the idea,” said Ford. “You feel better 
now ? ’ ’ 

“Ever so much better, thank you,” answered Mar- 
garet. “It was just what I wanted.” 

Mrs. Jakes was staring at them as though convinced 
that sudden mania had attacked them both at the same 
moment. 

“It ’s all right,” Ford assured her. “It ’s a dodge 
for blowing off temper. If you ’d just call Mr. Sam- 
son something really rude, he ’d be ever so grateful. 
Call him a Socialist, Mrs. Jakes.” 

“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Mrs. Jakes, while Mr. Sam- 
son, mastering his emotions, glared and reddened. 
“You did alarm me,” she said. “I thought for a mo- 
ment — well, I don’t know what I did think.” 

She was distinctly not at her ease for the remainder 
of the meal, and even at tea that afternoon, she kept 
an eye on the pair of them. To her mind, they were 
playing with edged tools. 

It was at tea, as a rule, that Dr. Jakes was first 
visible, very tremulous and thirsty, but always sub- 
missive and content to be overlooked and forgotten. 
At dinner, later on, he would be better and able to 
talk with a jerky continuity to Margaret who sat at 
his right hand. He bore himself always with an air of 
69 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


effort, like one who is not at home and whose acquaint- 
ance with his fellows is slight, and drank at table 
nothing but water. His eyes kept the Kafir servants 
under observation as they waited, and the black boys 
were full of alacrity in the consciousness that he was 
watching. “It ’s strange, ’ ’ Mrs. J akes used to say ; 
“Eustace is so quiet, and yet the natives obey him 
wonderfully . 9 ’ Afterwards, in the drawing-room, he 
would flicker to and fro restlessly, growing each mo- 
ment more irritable and incapable of hearing a sen- 
tence to the end. Half-way through the evening, he 
would seize an occasion to escape to his own quarters, 
and thereafter would be invisible till next day. Every 
one knew whither he went and for what purpose; eyes 
met in significant glances as the door closed softly be- 
hind him and Mrs. Jakes raised her voice in rapid 
speech to hide the sound of his tiptoe crossing of the 
hall; his secret was anybody’s and even the Kafirs 
shared it, and yet the man had the force of mystery. 
He slid to and fro in the interstices of their lives and 
came to the surface only to serve and heal them. That 
done, he dropped back again to the solace that was his 
behind his locked door, while about him the house 
slept. He knew himself and yet could look his pa- 
tients and his wife in the face. Mingled with their con- 
tempt and disgust, there was an acknowledgment of the 
quality of him, of a kind of wry and shabby greatness. 

And thus the day came to its end. One by one, Mar- 
garet, Ford and Mr. Samson drew off and made their 
way to the dignified invitation of the big staircase and 
their rooms. Mrs. Jakes was always at hand to bid 
them good night, for her day was yet a long way from 
its finish. 


70 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“ Tired, my dear?” she would ask Margaret. “It’s 
been a tiring day ; I feel it myself. Good night to you.” 

In her room, Margaret would find Fat Mary waiting 
for her, sleepy in her vast, ridiculous way, but still 
prodigal of smiles, and ready to put her to bed with 
two left hands equipped with ten thumbs. She had a 
yawn which would have reminded Jonah of old times, 
but nothing could damp her helpful ardor, not even 
being discovered stretched fast asleep on Margaret’s 
bed and being waked with the bath sponge. She made 
it clear that she would stop at few things to be of 
service. 

“Missis not sleepy? Ah!” She stood in thought 
for five seconds. “Me nurse Missis, all same baby? 
Plenty strong — me!” 

She dandled an imaginary child in her great arms, 
smiling cheerfully but quite in earnest. “Plenty 
strong,” she assured the young lady from Kensington. 
“No? No? Alla-right!” 

Darkness at last, and the window wide to the small, 
whispering winds which people the veld at night! A 
sky of blue-black powdered with misty white stars, and 
from the distance, squeaks, small cries, the wary voice 
of the wilderness! Sometimes a jackal would range 
within earshot and lift up his voice under the stars 
to cry like a child, in the very accent of heartbroken, 
helpless woe. The nightly traffic of the veld was in 
full swing ere her eyes closed and its subdued clamor 
followed her into her dreams. 

Silence in the big house and along the matted corri- 
dors — and one voice, speaking guardedly, in the hall. 
It never happened to Margaret to hear it and go to 
the stair-head and look down. Thence she might have 
71 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

seen what would have made her less happy — Mrs. 
Jakes on her knees at the locked door of the study, 
with her candle set on the floor beside her, casting a 
monstrous shadow-caricature of her upon the gray 
stone wall. In her sober black dress she knelt on the 
mat and her small, kitchen-reddened hands tapped 
gently, carefully on the panels. She spoke through the 
keyhole and her fruitless whisperings rustled in light 
echoes about the high ceiling. 

‘ 1 Eustace, it ’s me. Eustace! I ’m so tired, Eustace. 
Please open the door. Please, Eustace ! It ’s only me, 
dear.” 


72 


CHAPTER V 


H ARDLY smart,’ ’ pronounced Mrs. du Preez, 
speaking low into Mrs. Jakes’ ear. “Smart ’s 
not the word I ’d use for her myself. Distangay, now, 
or chic , if you understand what that means!” 

“Oh, quite!” replied Mrs. Jakes coldly. 

They were seated side by side upon the sofa in the 
little parlor of the farm ; its dimensions made it impossi- 
ble for Mrs. Jakes to treat her hostess as distantly as 
she could have wished. There was nothing for it but 
to leave her ear and her unresponsive profile, composed 
to a steadfast woodenness, to the mercy of those criti- 
cal and authoritative whispers until deliverance should 
offer itself. She settled her small black-gowned figure 
and coughed behind three gloved fingers. 

Near the window looking forth across the kraals, Mar- 
garet Harding, the subject of Mrs. du Preez ’s com- 
ments, had the gaunt Boer for a companion. This was 
her visit of ceremony, her “return call”; two or three 
earlier visits, mere incidents of morning walks, when 
she had stopped to talk to Paul and been surprised and 
captured by Paul’s mother, were understood not to 
count, and the Recording Angel would omit them from 
his notes. Mrs. du Preez had taken the initiative in 
due order by appearing at the Sanatorium one after- 
noon at tea-time; she had asked Dr. Jakes if he had “a 
mouth on him” and Margaret if there were many peo- 
ple in town. The next step in the transaction was for 
73 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Margaret to put on a real frock and a real hat, and take 
herself and her card-case through the white, scornful 
sunshine to the farm; and behold! by virtue of this 
solemnity, two women marooned at the heart of an 
ocean of sun-swamped desert had license to distinguish 
one another from common objects of the country side. 

Even Mrs. Jakes, whose attitude towards Mrs. du 
Preez was one of disapproval tempered by dread, could 
see no alternative to this course. She shook her head 
at Margaret’s amusement. 

“This is not London, of course,” she said reasonably. 
“I know that. But, my dear, we ’re Christian people 
— even here.” 

At Margaret’s side, the tall Boer, Christian du 
Preez, leaned against the wall and regarded her with 
shy, intent eyes that were oddly like Paul’s. There 
was lacking in him that aloof and almost reverent quality 
of the boy which made him seem as though he regarded 
all things with an equal wonder and an equal kinship ; 
he was altogether harder and more immediately force- 
ful, a figure at home in his narrow world; but the 
relationship between him and his son was obvious. 
Margaret had only to glance across the room to where 
Paul sat by the door, following the trickle of conversa- 
tion around the room from face to face with his eyes, 
to see the resemblance. What was common to them 
both was a certain shadowy reserve, a character of 
relationship to the dumbness and significance of the 
Karoo, and something else which had the gloom of 
melancholy and the power of pride. In each of them 
the Boer, the world’s disinherited son, was salient. 

Mrs. du Preez had secured his presence to grace the 
occasion after some resistance on his part, for he en- 
74 


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tered the parlor seldom and was not at his ease there. 
Its atmosphere of indoor formality daunted and op- 
pressed him, and he felt coarse and earth-stained under 
the eyes of the serene young men who watched him 
from their plush and fret-work frames. He had 
nothing to set against their sleek beauty and their calm 
sophistication but his fathom and odd inches of lean, 
slow-moving strength, his eyes of patient expectancy 
and the wild beard that redeemed his countenance from 
mildness. He had come under protest and for the sake 
of peace, and sat scowling in a chair, raw with shyness 
and irritation, in the dreadful interval between the 
completion of Mrs. du Preez’s preparations and the ar- 
rival of the guests, while in face of him “ yours 
blithely, Boy Bailey,” set him a hopeless example of 
iron-clad complacency. 

Then came Margaret and Mrs. Jakes, and at the 
first sign of them he was screened as in a cloud by the 
welcome of Mrs. du Preez. Their step upon the 
threshold was her cue for a cordiality of greeting that 
filled the room and overflowed into the passage in a 
rapid crescendo of compliment, inquiries as to health, 
laughter and mere bustle; it was like the entrance of 
two star performers supported by a full chorus and 
corps de ballet. 

“So here you are, the two of you,” was her style. 
4 ‘ On time to a tick, too ! Come right in, Miss Harding, 
and look out for that step — it ’s a terror. A death- 
trap, I call it! And you, Mrs. Jakes. I won’t say 
I ’m glad to see you, ’cause you ’ll believe that without 
me telling you. You found it pretty hot walking, I 
know; we ’re all pretty warm members in this com- 
munity, aren’t we? Sit down, sit down; no extra 
75 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


charge for sitting down, y’know. And now, how are 
you? Sitting up and taking nourishment, eh? That ’s 
the style !” 

Margaret was aware, across her shoulder, of a 
gloomy male presence inhabiting the background. 

“Let me introduce my husband/ ’ said Mrs. du 
Preez, following her glance. “Christian, this is Miss 
Harding. And now, Mrs. Jakes, let you an’ me have 
a sit-down over here. You first — age before innocence, 
y ’ know. And how ’s the poor old doctor ? ’ ’ 

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Jakes firmly, “he is quite 
well.” 

She smiled graciously at Paul, who was watching her, 
and took her seat, resigned to martyrdom. 

Christian du Preez gave the girl a slack hand and 
murmured incoherently some salutation, while his gaze 
took in avidly each feature of her and summed up her 
effect of easy modernity. He recognized in her a cer- 
tain feminine quality for which he had no name. Once 
before he had glimpsed it as in a revelation, when, as 
a youth newly returned from service on commando 
against rebellious Kafirs, he had spent an evening in 
a small town and there seen a performance by a trav- 
eling theatrical company. It was a crude and ill- 
devised show, full of improbable murders that 
affronted the common-sense of a man fresh from 
various killings; but in an interval between slaughters, 
there was a scene that brought upon the stage a slim 
girl who walked erect and smiled and shrugged easily 
at the audience. Her part was brief ; she was not visible 
for more than a few minutes, and assuredly her shaft, 
so soon sped, struck no one else. It needed a Boer, 
with his feet in the mud and his head among the stars, 
76 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


to clothe her with dignity as with a robe and add to 
her valuation of herself the riches of his woman- 
haunted imagination. She passed from sight again, 
and for the time he scarcely regretted her, for she left 
glamour behind her and a vision of womanhood 
equipped, debonnaire, heart-breaking in its fragility and 
its daring. 

The outcome of that revelation was marriage within 
the week; but it never revisited the bored and weary 
woman whom Christian du Preez had brought home to 
his farm and its solitudes. It was as though he had 
tried to pick an image from still water; the fruit of 
that endeavor was memory and an empty hand. Even 
as he greeted Margaret he turned slowly and looked 
from her to his wife in unconscious comparison, and 
turned as unconsciously back again. Only Mrs. du 
Preez knew the meaning of that glance; she answered 
it with an obstinate compression of the mouth and went 
on talking to Mrs. Jakes about the hang of Margaret’s 
skirt. 

“It ’s all right for her,” she was saying. “These 
leggy ones can wear anything. But think how you ’d 
look in it, for instance. Why you ’d make a horse 
laugh ! ’ ’ 

“Indeed!” said Mrs. 'Jakes, unhappy but bristling. 
She never grew reconciled to Mrs. du Preez ’s habit of 
using her as a horrible example. 

“You would that,” Mrs. du Preez assured her. 
“You see, my dear, yours is an elderly style.” 

At the window, Margaret was doing what she could 
to thaw the tall Boer into talk, and meeting with 
some success. He liked, while possibly he did not quite 
understand, her relish for the view from the window, 
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with the rude circles of the kraals near at hand, the 
scattered huts of the farm Kafirs beyond them, and the 
all-subduing brown of the Karoo slipping forth to the 
edge of the sky. He had once heard a young man from 
the Sanatorium agree with Mrs. du Preez that the 
Karoo resembled a brick-field established in a cemetery. 
Margaret did better than that. 

“I suppose you ’ve traveled all over it?” she asked 
him. 

* ‘ When I was a young man, I rode transport,” he 
answered. * ‘ Then I traveled; now I sit still in the mid- 
dle of it and try to grow wool. ’ ’ 

“Is it all like this?” she asked. 

“Sometimes there is grass — a little — not much, and 
milk bushes and prickly pear,” he told her. “But it 
is hard ground, all of it. It is very peaceful, though.” 

She nodded comprehendingly, and he found a stimu- 
lant in her quiet interest. He had not Paul’s tense 
absorption in the harvest of the eye, but he would 
have been no Boer had the vacant miles not exercised 
a power over him. 

“You ’re never — discontented with it?” asked Mar- 
garet. “I mean, you find it enough for you, without 
wanting towns and all that?” 

He shook his head, hesitating. “I do not know 
towns,” he answered. “No, I don’t want towns. But 
— every day the same sights, and the sun and the si- 
lence — ” 

“Yes?” she asked. 

He was little used to confessing himself and his shy- 
ness was an obstacle to clear speech. Besides, the mat- 
ter in his mind was not clear to himself ; he was aware 
78 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

of it as a color to his thoughts rather than as a fact 
to be stated. 

1 ‘It makes you guess at things,” he said at last. 
“You guess, but you don’t ever know.” 

“What things?” asked Margaret. 

“A lot of things,” he answered. “God, and the 
devil, and all that. It ’s always there, you see, and you 
must think.” 

A rattle in the passage and a start from Mrs. du 
Preez heralded tea, borne in upon a reverberating iron 
tray by a timid and clumsy Kafir maid, who set her 
burden insecurely upon the table and fled in panic. 
Christian du Preez ceased to speak as if upon a signal 
and Mrs. du Preez entered the arena hospitably. 

“You ’re sure you wouldn’t rather have something 
else?” she asked Margaret, as she filled the cups. 
“There ’s afternoons when a whisky-and-soda is more 
in my line than tea. Sure you won’t? P’r’aps Mrs. 
Jakes will, then? We won’t tell, will we, Paul? Well, 
’ave it your own way, only don’t blame me! Christian, 
reach this cup to Miss Harding.” 

The tall man did as he was bidden, ignoring Mrs. 
Jakes. In his world, women helped themselves. Paul 
carried her cup to Mrs. Jakes and sat down beside her 
in the place vacated by his mother. From there, he 
could see Margaret and look through the window as 
well. 

“If you ’ll have one, I ’ll keep you company,” sug- 
gested Mrs. du Preez privately to Mrs. Jakes. 

“One what?” inquired Mrs. Jakes across her cup. 
The poor lady was feeling very grateful for the strong 
tea to console her nerves. 

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“One what!” Mrs. du Preez was scornful. “A 
drink, of course — a drink out of a glass!” 

“No, thank you,” replied Mrs. Jakes hastily. “I 
never touch stimulants.” 

“Oh, well!” Mrs. du Preez resigned herself to cir- 
cumstances. “I suppose,” she enquired, nodding to- 
wards Margaret, “she don’t either?” 

“I believe not,” replied Mrs. Jakes. 

Mrs. du Preez considered the matter. “You ’d think 
they ’d grow out of it,” she observed enigmatically. 
“She seems to be lively enough, too, in her way. First 
person I ever saw who could make Christian talk.” 

Christian was talking at last. Margaret had paused 
to watch a string of natives pass in single-file, after the 
unsociable Kafir fashion, before the window, going to- 
wards the huts, with the sun-gilt dust rising about them 
in a faint haze. They were going home after their 
day’s work, and she wondered suddenly to what secret 
joy of freedom they re-entered when the hours of the 
white man’s dominion were over and the coming of 
night made a black world for the habitation of black 
men. 

“I suppose there is no knowing what they really feel 
and think?” she suggested. 

That is the South African view, the white man’s sur- 
render to the impregnable reserve of the black races; 
native opinion is only to be gathered when the native 
breaks bounds. Christian du Preez nodded. 

“No,” he agreed. “I have always been among them, 
and I have fought them, too ; but what they think they 
don’t tell.” 

“You have fought them? How was that?” 

“When I was young. On commando,” he explained, 

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FLOWER O’ 'THE PEACH 


with his eyes on her. It was luxury to see the anima- 
tion of her pale, clear-cut face as she looked up and 
waited for him to go on. 

“It was a real war,” he answered her. “A real war. 
There was a chief — Kamis, they called him — down there 
in the south, and his men murdered an officer. So 
the government called out the burghers and sent Cape 
Mounted Rifles with us to go and punish him. I was 
twenty years old then, and I went too.” 

In the background Mrs. du Preez sniffed. “He ’s 
telling her about that old Kafir war of his,” she said. 
“He always tells that to young women. I know 
him!” 

Christian went on, lapsing as he continued from the 
careful English he had spoken hitherto to the cruder 
vernacular of the Cape. He told of the marching and 
the quick, shattering attack against Kafirs at bay in the 
low hills bordering the Karoo, of a fight at night in a 
rain-squall, when the “pot-leg,” the Kafir bullets ham- 
mered out of cold iron, sang in the air like flutes and 
made a wound when they struck that a man could put 
his fist into. His eyes shone with the fires of warm 
remembrance as he told of that advance over grass- 
grown slopes slippery with wet, when the gay despera- 
does of the Cape Mounted Rifles went up singing, 
“Jinny, my own true loved one, Wait till the clouds 
roll by, ’ ’ and on their flank the burghers found 
cover and lit the night with the flashes of their mus- 
ketry. It was an epic woven into the fiber of the nar- 
rator’s soul, a thing lived poignantly, each moment of 
it flavored on the palate and the taste remembered. He 
had been in the final breathless rush that broke the 
Kafirs and sent them scuttling like rock-rabbits — “das- 

e 81 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


sies,” he called them — through the rocks to the 
kopje-ringed hollow where they would be held till morn- 
ing. 

And then that morning! 

“Man, it was cold,” he said. “There was no fires. 
We were lying in the bushes with our rifles under our 
bellies till coffee-time, and that Lascelles, our general, 
walked up and down behind us all the night. He was 
a little old soldier-officer from Capetown; his face was 
red and his mustache was white. The rain was falling 
on my back all the time, but sometimes I slept a little. 
And when it was sun-up, I could see down the krantz 
to the veld below, and there was all the Kafirs together, 
all in a bunch, in the middle of it. They didn’t look 
much ; I was surprised to see so few. They were stand- 
ing and lying on the wet grass, and they seemed tired. 
Some were sleeping, even, stretched out like dead men 
below us, but what made me sorry for them was, they 
were so few. 

“I was sorry,” he added, thoughtfully. 

Margaret nodded. 

“But it was a real war,” he assured her quickly. 
“When the sun was well up, we moved, and presently 
all the burghers were lying close together with our rifles 
ready. It was Lascelles that ordered it. I didn’t un- 
derstand, then, for I knew a beaten Kafir when I saw 
one, and those below were beaten to the ground. By 
and by the Cape Mounted Rifles went past behind us, and 
dipped down into a hollow on our right; we had only 
to wait, and it was very cold. I was wondering when 
they would let us make coffee and talking to the next 
man about it, when from our right, so sudden that I 
jumped up at the sound of it, the Cape Mounted Rifles 
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fired at the Kafirs down below. Man, that was awful! 
It was like a thunder on a clear day. All of us were 
surprised, and some called out and swore and said La- 
scelles was a fool. But it was queer, all the same, to 
see the Kafirs. Twenty of them was killed, and one 
of them had a bullet in his stomach and rolled about 
making screams like laughing. The rest — they didn’t 
move; they didn’t run; they didn’t cry out. A few 
looked up at us; I tell you, it was near enough to see 
their white eyes; but the others just stopped as they 
were. They was like cattle, like sick cattle, patient and 
weak and finished ; the Cape Mounted Rifles could have 
killed them all and they wouldn’t have lifted their 
hands. 

“Our commandant — Van Zyl, he was called, a very 
fat man — clicked with his tongue. ‘Wasting them,’ he 
said. ‘Wasting them!’ 

“Then we went down the hill and came all round 
them, standing among the dead bodies, and Lascelles 
with his interpreter and his two young officers in tight 
belts went forward to look for Kamis, the chief. The 
interpreter — he was a yellow-faced Hollander — called 
out once, and in the middle of the Kafirs there stood up 
an old Kafir with a blanket on his shoulders and his wool 
all gray. He came walking through the others with a 
little black boy, three or four years old, holding by his 
hand and making big round eyes at us. It was the son 
that was left to him ; the others, we found out, were all 
killed. He was an old man and walked bent and held 
the blanket round him with one hand. He looked to 
me like a good old woman who ought to have been sit- 
ting in a chair in a kitchen. 

‘ ‘ ‘ Are you Kamis ? ’ they asked him. 

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“ ‘I am Kauris/ he said, ‘and this is my son who is 
also Kamis.’ 

“He showed them the little plump piccanin, who hung 
back and struggled. One of the young officers with 
tight belts put an eye-glass in his eye and laughed. 
Lascelles did not laugh. He was a little man, as neat 
as a lady, with ugly, narrow eyes. 

“ ‘Tell him he ’s to be hanged/ he ordered. 

“Old Kamis heard it without a sign, only nodding 
as the interpreter translated it to him. 

“ ‘And what will they do to my son?’ he asked. 

“Lascelles snuffled in his nose angrily. ‘The Gov- 
ernment will take care of his son/ he said, and turned 
away. But when he had gone a few steps he turned 
back again. ‘Tell the old chap/ he ordered, ‘and tell 
him plainly, that his son will be taken care of. He ’ll 
be all right, he ’ll be well looked after. Savvy?’ he 
shouted to Kamis. ‘Piccanin all right; plenty skoff, 
plenty mahli, plenty everything.’ 

“The Hollander told the old chief while Lascelles 
waited, and the men of the Cape Mounted Rifles who 
had the handcuffs for him stood on each side. Kamis 
heard it with his head on one side, as if he was a bit 
deaf. Then he nodded and put out his hands for the 
irons. 

“Lascelles held out his hands to the baby Kafir. 

“ ‘Come with me, kid!’ he said. 

“The baby hung back. He was scared. Old Kamis 
said something to him and pushed him with his 
knee, and at last the child went and took Lascelles’ 
hand. 

“ ‘That ’s it/ said Lascelles, and lifted him up. As 
he carried him away, I heard him talking to the young 
84 


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officer with the eye-glass. ‘That ’s a damned silly grin 
you ’ve got, Whitburn/ he said, ‘and you may as well 
know I ’m sick of it/ 

“I think he was a bit ashamed of carrying the baby. 
He hadn’t any of his own. I saw his wife later, when 
we were disbanded — a skinny, yellow woman who played 
cards every evening. 

“And then, at Fereira, they hanged old Kamis, while 
we all stood round with our rifles resting on the ground. 
There was a man to hang him who wore a mask, and I 
was sorry about the mask, because I thought I might 
meet him sometime and not know him and be friends 
with him. He had red hair though; his mask couldn’t 
hide that, and there is something about red hair that 
turns me cold. There were about fifty of his tribe who 
were brought there to see the end of Kamis and take 
warning by him, and when he came out of the jail door, 
between two men, with his hands tied behind him, they 
all lifted a hand above their heads to salute him. The 
men on each side of him held him by the elbows and 
hurried him along. They took him so fast that he 
tripped his foot and nearly fell. ‘Slower, you swine!’ 
said Laseelles, who was there with a sword on. He 
walked across and spoke to Kamis. ‘Piccanin all right!’ 
he said, ‘All-a right!’ said Kamis, and then they led 
him up the steps. They were all about him there, the 
jail men and the man with the mask; for a minute I 
couldn’t see him at all. Then they were away from 
him, and there was a bag on his head and the rope was 
round his neck. The man with the mask seemed to be 
waiting, and at last Laseelles lifted his hand in a tired 
way and there was a crash of falling planks and a cry 
from the Kafirs, and old Kamis, as straight and lean 
85 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

as a young man, was hanging under the platform just 
above the ground and swinging a little.’ ’ 

Christian du Preez frowned and looked at Margaret 
absently. 

“And then I was sick,” he said reflectively. “Quite 
sick ! ’ ’ 

“I don’t wonder,” said Margaret. “But the baby! 
What happened to the Kafir baby?” 

“I didn’t see the baby any more,” replied the Boer. 
“But I read in a newspaper that they sent it to Eng- 
land. Perhaps it died.” 

“But why send it to England?” asked Margaret. 
‘ ‘ What could it do there ? ’ ’ 

Christian du Preez shrugged one shoulder. “The 
Government sent it,” he replied, conclusively. No Boer 
attempts to explain a government ; it is his eternal unac- 
countable. “You see it was the Chief, that baby was, 
so they wanted to send it a long way off, perhaps.” 

“And now, I suppose it ’s a man,” said Margaret; “a 
poor negro all alone in London, who has forgotten his 
own tongue. He wears shabby clothes and makes 
friends with servant girls, and never remembers how 
he held his father’s hand while you burghers and the sol- 
diers came down the hillside. Don’t you think that ’s 
sad?” 

“Yes,” said the Boer thoughtfully, but without alac- 
rity, for after all a Kafir is a Kafir and his place in the 
sympathies of his betters is a small one. “Kafirs 
look ugly in clothes,” he added after a moment. 

At the other side of the room, the others had ceased 
their talk to listen. Mrs. du Preez laughed a little 
harshly. 

“They ’re worse in boots,” she volunteered. “Ever 
86 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


seen a nigger with boots on, Miss Harding? He walks 
as if his feet weighed a ton. Make a clatter like clog- 
dancin’. But round here, of course, there ’s no boots 
for them to get.” 

4 ‘There ’s one now,” said Margaret. ‘ ‘Look — he ’s 
passing the kraals. He ’s got boots on.” 

They all looked with a quick curiosity that was a little 
strange to see ; one would have thought a passing Kafir 
would scarcely have interested them by any eccentricity 
of attire. Even Mrs. Jakes rose from her place on the 
sofa and stood on tip-toe to see over Mrs. du Preez’s 
shoulders. There is an instinct in the South African 
which makes him conscious, in his dim, short-sighted 
way, that over against him there looms the passive, irrec- 
oncilable power of the black races. He is like a man car- 
rying a lantern, with the shifting circle of light about 
him, and at its frontier the darkness pregnant with 
presences. 

The Boer, learned in Kafir varieties, stared under 
puckered brows at the single figure passing below the 
kraals. He marked not so much any unusual feature 
in it as the absence of things that were usual. 

‘ 1 Paul,” he said, “go an’ see what he ’s after.” 

Paul was already at the door, going out silently. He 
paused to nod. 

“I ’m going now,” he said. 

“Strange Kafirs want lookin’ after,” explained Mrs. 
du Preez to Margaret as the boy passed the window out- 
side. “You never know what they’re up to. Hang 
out your wash when they ’re around and you ’re short 
of linen before you know where you are, and there ’s a 
nigger on the trek somewhere in a frilled petticoat or 
a table-cloth. They don’t care what it is; anything ’ll 
87 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


do for them. Why, last year one of ’em sneaked a skirt 
off Mrs. Jakes here. Didn’t he, now?” 

“It was a very good skirt,” said Mrs. Jakes, flush- 
ing. “A very good one — not even turned.” 

“Well, he was in luck, then,” said Mrs. du Preez. 
“And what he looks like in it — well, I give it up ! Miss 
Harding, you ain’t going yet, surely?” 

“I ’m afraid I must,” put in Mrs. Jakes, seizing her 
opportunity. “I have to see about dinner.” 

They shook hands all round. “You must all come 
up to tea with me some afternoon soon,” suggested Mar- 
garet. “You will come, won’t you?” 

“Will a duck swim?” inquired Mrs. du Preez, geni- 
ally. “You just try us, Miss Harding. And oh ! if you 
want to say good-by to Paul, I know where he ’s gone. 
He ’ll be down under the dam, makin’ mud pies.” 

“Not really?” 

“You just step down and see; it won’t take you a 
moment. He makes things, y’know; he made a sort of 
statue of me once. ‘ If that ’s like me, ’ I told him, ‘ it ’s 
lucky I ’m off the stage.’ And what d ’you think he 
had the cheek to answer me? 4 Mother,’ he says, ‘when 
you forget what you look like, you look like this.’ ” 

“I think I will just say good-by to Paul,” said Mar- 
garet, glancing at Mrs. Jakes. 

“Come on after me, then,” answered the doctor’s 
wife. “I really must fly.” 

“Pigs might fly,” suggested Mrs. du Preez, enig- 
matically. 

The Boer did not go to the door with them ; he waited 
where he stood while Mrs. du Preez, her voice waxing 
through the leave-takings to a shrill climax of farewell, 
accompanied them to her borders. When she returned 
88 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

to the little room, he was still standing in his place, 
returning “Boy Bailey’s” glazed stare with gloomy in- 
tensity. 

His wife looked curiously at him as she moved to the 
table and began to put the scattered tea-cups together 
on the tray. 

“She ’s a nice girl, Christian,” she said, as she gath- 
ered them up. 

He did not answer, though he heard. She went on 
with her work till the tray was ready to be carried 
forth, glancing at his brooding face under her eyebrows. 

“Christian,” she said suddenly. “I remember when 
you told me about the war and the Kafir baby.” 

He gave her an absent look. “You said, ‘Hang the 
Kafir baby !’ ” he answered. 

He turned from her, with a last resentful glare at the 
plump perfection of Boy Bailey, and slouched heavily 
from the room. Mrs. du Preez, with a pursed mouth, 
watched him go in silence. 

Mrs. Jakes was resolute in her homeward intentions; 
she had a presentiment of trouble in the kitchen which 
turned out to be well grounded. So Margaret went 
alone along the narrow rut of a path which ran down 
towards the shining water of the dam, which the slant- 
ing sun transmuted to a bath of gold. She was glad 
of the open air again, after Mrs. du Preez ’s carefully 
guarded breathing-mixture with its faint odor of furni- 
ture polish and horsehair. Paul, by the way, knew 
that elusive fragrance as the breath of polite life ; it be- 
longed to the parlor, where his father might not smoke, 
and to nowhere else, and its usual effect was to rarefy 
human intercourse to the point of inanity. In the par- 
lor, one spoke in low tones and dared not clear one’s 
89 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


throat and felt like an * abortion and a monstrosity. 
Years afterwards, when the doors of the world had 
been forced and it had turned out to be a smallish place, 
only passably upholstered, it needed but a sniff of that 
odor to make his hands suddenly vast and unwieldy 
and reduce him to silence and discomfort. 

The path skirted the dam, at the edge of which grew 
rank grass, and dipped to turn the corner of the slop- 
ing wall of earth and stones at its deeper end. As she 
went, she stooped to pick up a fragment of sun-dried 
clay that caught her eye ; it had been part of a face, and 
on it the mouth still curved. It was rudely done, but 
it was there, and it had, even the broken fragment that 
lacked the interpretation of its context, some touch of 
free vigor that arrested her in the act of letting it drop. 
She went on carrying it in her hand, and at the corner 
of the wall stopped again at the sound of voices. Some 
one was talking only twenty paces away, hidden from 
her by the bulk of the wall. 

“You must shape it in the lump,” she heard. “You 
must go for the mass. That ’s everything — the mass ! 
Do you see what I mean?” 

She knew the tones, the clear modulations of the pun- 
dit-speech which belonged to her class, but there was 
another quality in the voice that was only vaguely fa- 
miliar to her, which she could not identify. It brought 
to her mind, by some unconscious association, the lum- 
bering gaiety of Fat Mary. 

“Ye-es,” very slowly. That was PauPs voice an- 
swering. “Yes. Like you see it in the distance / ’ 

1 1 That ’s it , 9 1 the baffling voice spoke again. ‘ 4 That ’s 
it exactly. And work the clay like this, without break- 
ing it, smoothly.” 


90 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


She still held the broken fragment in her hand as she 
stepped round the corner of the wall to look. Paul, 
sitting cross-legged on the ground, had his back to her, 
and facing him, with a lump of red clay between his 
hands, which moved upon it deliberately, molding it 
with care, sat a Kafir. He was intent upon his work, 
and the brim of his hat, overhanging his eyes, prevented 
him from seeing her arrival. She stood for a moment 
watching; the two of them made a still group to which 
all the western sky and the wide land were a back- 
ground. And then the clay fragment dropped from her 
hand, hit on a stone underfoot and cracked into pieces 
that dissolved the dumb curve of the mouth in ruin. 

At the little noise it made, Paul turned sharply and 
the Kafir raised his head and looked at her. There was 
an instant of puzzled staring and then the Kafir lifted 
his hat to her. 

“I ’ll be going,” he said, and began to rise to his 
feet. 

“ Don’t,” said Paul. “ Don’t go.” He was looking 
at the girl expectantly, waiting for her to justify her- 
self. Now was the time to confirm his faith in her. 
* 4 Don’t go,” he repeated. “It ’s Miss Harding that I 
told you about.” He hesitated a moment, and now 
his eyes appealed to her. “She ’s from London,” he 
said; “she ’ll understand.” 

The Kafir waited, standing up, a slender, upright 
young man in worn discolored clothes. To Margaret 
then, as to Paul in his first encounter with him at the 
station, there was a shock in the pitiful, gross negro face 
that went with the pleasant, cultivated voice. It 
added something slavish to his travel-stained appear- 
ance that touched the girl’s quick pity. 

91 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


She stepped forward impulsively. 

4 4 Please don’t go,” she begged, 4 ‘I should be so sorry. 
And Paul will introduce us.” 

He smiled. 4 4 It shall be as you like, of course,” he 
answered. 4 4 Will you sit down? The grass is always 
dry here.” 

He made an oddly conventional gesture, as though 
the slope of the dam wall were a chair and he were go- 
ing to place it for her. 

4 4 Oh, thanks,” said Margaret, and sat down. 


92 


CHAPTER YI 


T HE Kafir seated himself again in his old place and 
let his hand fall upon the mass of clay which he 
had been fashioning for Paul’s instruction. He was 
the least perturbed of the three of them. He sank 
his finger-tops in the soft plasticity of the stuff, and 
smiled across it at the others, at the boy, embarrassed 
and not sure of Margaret yet, and at her, still mastered 
by her curiosity. It was almost as if he were used to 
being regarded with astonishment, and his self-posses- 
sion had a touch of that deliberate lime-lit quality which 
distinguishes the private lives of preachers and actors 
and hunchbacks. 

For the rest, he seemed to be about Margaret’s age, 
clean run and of the middle stature. Watching him, 
Margaret was at a loss to discover what it was about 
him that seemed so oddly commonplace and familiar till 
she noted his clothes. They were “ tweeds.” Though 
he had apparently slept on the bare ground in them 
and made them a buffer between his skin and many 
emergencies of travel, they were still tweeds, such as 
any sprightly youth of Bayswater might affect for a 
week-end in the country. 

It needed only a complexion and an attitude to ren- 
der him inconspicuous on a golf-course, but in that place, 
under the majestic sun, with the heat-dazzle of the 
Karoo at his back, his very clothes made him the more 
incomprehensible. 


93 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

Margaret realized that he was waiting for her to 
speak. 

* 1 You model, then ?” she asked, striving to speak in an 
altogether matter-of-fact tone, as though to come across 
gifted, English-speaking negroes, giving art lessons in 
odd corners, were nothing unusual. 

“Just a little, ’ ’ he answered. “Enough to help Paul 
to make a beginning. Eh, Paul?” 

Paul nodded, turning to Margaret. “He knows 
lots,” he said. “He ’s been in London, too. It was 
there he learned to — to model.” 

Paul had a way of uttering the word “London” 
which conveyed to Margaret’s ready sympathies some 
little part of what it meant to him, the bright unattain- 
able home of wonderful activities, the land of heart’s 
desire. 

“In London?” She turned to the Kafir, “London 
seems a long way from here, doesn’t it?” 

“Yes; a long way.” He was not smiling now. “It 
is seven months since I left London,” he said; “and 
already it seems dim and unreal. It ’s as if I ’d 
dreamed about it and only remembered parts of my 
dream. ’ ’ 

Paul was listening with that profound attention he 
seemed to give to all things. 

“I don’t feel it ’s as far as all that,” said Margaret. 
“But then, I was there two months ago. Probably that 
makes a difference.” 

She was only now beginning to realize the strange- 
ness of the encounter, and as she talked her faculties, 
taken by ambush and startled from their functions, re- 
gained their alertness. She watched him composedly 
as he replied. 


M 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Yes,” he said. “And there are other differences, 
too. Since I left London I have not slept under a 
roof. ’ ’ 

While he spoke he did not cease to finger the clay; 
as he turned it here and there, Margaret was able to see 
it was the head of a negro that he was shaping and the 
work was already well forward. It was, indeed, the 
same head whose unexpected scowl had astonished Paul ; 
and as he moved it about, the still gloomy face of clay 
seemed to glance backward and forward as though it 
heard him and doubted. 

“But why not?” demanded Margaret. 

He seemed to hesitate before answering, and mean- 
while his hands were busy and deft. 

“Why not?” she repeated. “Seven months! I 
don’t understand. Why have n’t you slept under a roof 
all that time?” 

“Well!” He smiled as he spoke at last. “You see 
— I don’t speak Kafir. That ’s where the trouble is. 
When first I came up here, I went across to the southern 
districts, where Kafirs are pretty numerous. My idea 
was to live among them, in order to — well, to carry out 
an idea of mine.” 

He paused. “They didn’t know what to make of 
you?” suggested Margaret. 

“No — unless it was a corpse,” he answered. “I 
don ’t really blame them ; they must have been horribly 
suspicious of me. At the first kraal I came to — the first 
village, that is — I tried to make myself known to a 
splendid old chap, sitting over a little fire, who seemed 
to be in charge. That was awfully queer. Every man, 
woman and child in the place stood round and stared 
and made noises of distrust — that ’s what they sounded 
95 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


like; and the old chap just squatted in the middle and 
blinked up at me without a word. I ’d heard that most 
of the Kafirs about here could understand a little Eng- 
lish, so I just talked away and tried to look innocent 
and useful and I hoped I was making the right im- 
pression. The chap listened profoundly till I had quite 
done, looking as though he were taking in every word 
of it. Then he lifted both arms, with exactly the move- 
ment of a cock when it ’s going to crow, and two young 
fellows behind him leaned down and took hold of them 
and helped him very slowly to his feet. I made sure 
I ’d done the trick and that he was getting up to shake 
hands or something. But instead of that he groped 
about with his right hand in a blind, helpless kind of 
way, till one of his private secretaries put a knobherry, 
a bludgeon with a knob on the end, into it. And then, 
the poor old thing who had to be helped to his feet took 
one quick step in my direction and landed me a bang 
on the head with the club. I just remember that all the 
others burst into screams of laughter ; I must have heard 
them as I went down. ’ ’ 

“What a horrible thing !” exclaimed Margaret. 

He smiled again, his teeth flashing brilliantly in his 
black face. 

‘ ‘ It was awkward at the time, ’ ’ he admitted. ‘ 4 1 came 
to later on the veld where they dragged me, with a 
lump on my head the size of my fist. And sore — by 
J ove ! I was sore. Still, it ’s just possible I might 
have gone back for another try, if the first thing I 
saw hadn’t been a tall black gentleman sitting at 
the entrance to the kraal with an assegai — a spear, 
that is— ready for me. I concluded it wasn’t good 
enough ! ’ ’ 


96 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“No!” Margaret agreed with him. “I should think 
not. But why should they receive you like that?” 

“Perhaps,” he suggested, “they learned it from the 
white men!” 

(“He means to look ironical,” Margaret thought. 
“It isn’t a leer; it ’s irony handicapped by a negro 
face. Poor thing!”) 

“Then you had a bad time somewhere else?” she 
asked aloud. “Would you mind telling how? If you 
would, please don’t tell me. But I ’d like to hear.” 

“Then you shall. Of course you shall.” The look 
that tried to be ironical vanished. “If you could only 
know how grateful I am for — for this — for just your 
politeness. For you being what you are — ” 

“Please,” interrupted Margaret. “Please don’t. I 
want to hear. Just tell me.” 

There was something pathetic in his prompt obedi- 
ence. He shifted ground at once like a child that is 
snubbed. 

“It was in Capetown,” he said; “when I landed from 
the boat. There was trouble on the boat, too ; it was full 
of South Africans, and I had to have my meals alone 
and only use the deck at certain hours. I could n ’t even 
put my name down for a sovereign in the subscription 
they raised for the ship’s band; the others wouldn’t 
have it. I only got rid of that sovereign on the last 
evening, when the leader of the band came to me as I 
walked up and down on the boat deck. He passed me 
once or twice before he stopped to speak to me — making 
sure that nobody was looking. ‘ Hurry up ! ’ he said, in a 
whisper. ‘Where ’s the quid you was going to sub- 
scribe?’ ‘Say Sir!’ I said — for the fun of the thing. 
He couldn’t manage it for fully a minute; his share 
7 97 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of it wasn’t more than half-a-crown. I went on walk- 
ing and left him where I stood, but as I came back again 
he was ready for me. ‘No offense, sir,’ he said, quite 
clearly. I gave him the money and passed on. But 
he was still there when I turned again, and ever so anx- 
ious to put himself right with his conscience. ‘D’you 
know what I ’d do with you niggers if I had my way?’ 
he began, still in a large hoarse whisper, like air escap- 
ing from a pipe. ‘I ’d ’ave you back into slavery, I 
would. I ’d sell the lot of you.’ I laughed. ‘You 
couldn’t buy many of us with that sovereign!’ I told 
him. Really, I rather liked that man.” 

“There are men like that,” said Margaret thought- 
fully. “And women, too.” 

“Yes, aren’t there?” he agreed quickly. “But I ’d 
rather — it ’s a pity you should know it. However, you 
wanted to hear about Capetown. ’ ’ 

The afternoon was waning; the Kafir, with his hat at 
the back of his head and the rim of its brim framing his 
patient face, was set against a skyful of melting color. 
Even in face of those two attentive hearers, he sat as 
though in an immense and significant isolation, imposing 
himself upon them by virtue of his strong aloofness. 
Margaret was conscious of a great gulf set between them, 
an unbridgable hiatus of spirit and purpose. The man 
saw the life of the world not from above or below but 
as through a barred window, from a room in which he 
was prisoned and solitary. 

He was entirely matter-of-fact as he told of his trou- 
bles and difficulties when he landed in Capetown; he 
spoke of them as things accepted, calling for no comment. 
On the steamer from England he had been told of the 
then recent experiences of a concert party of Amer- 
98 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


iean negroes who visited Africa and had been obliged 
to sleep in the streets, but the tale had the sound of a 
smoking-room ingenuity and had not daunted him. But 
it was true for all that and he ran full-tilt into the ap- 
plication of it, when nightfall of the day of his arrival 
found him still seeking vainly for a lodging. He had 
money in plenty, but neither money nor fair words 
availed to bribe an innkeeper into granting him a bed. 

“But I saw a lot of Capetown/ ’ he said. “I walked 
that afternoon and evening full twenty miles — once all 
the way out to Sea Point and back again. And I was 
perhaps a little discouraged: there were so many diffi- 
culties I hadn’t expected. I knew quite well before I 
left England that I should have difficulties with the 
whites, but I hadn’t allowed for practically the same 
difficulties with the blacks. There was a place behind 
the railway station, a tumble-down house in which about 
a dozen Kafirs were living, and I tried that. They 
fetched a policeman who ordered me away, and I had 
to go. You see, they couldn’t make head or tail of me; 
I was much too unusual for them to keep company with. 
So about midnight I found myself walking down to- 
wards the jetty at the foot of Adderly Street. You 
don’t know Capetown, I suppose? The jetty sticks out 
into the bay; it ’s no great use except for a few boats 
to land and at night it serves the purpose of the Thames 
Embankment for men who have nowhere else to go. I 
was very tired by then. As I passed the Van Riebeck 
statue, a woman spoke to me.” 

He hesitated, examining Margaret’s listening face, 
doubtfully. 

“ I understand, ” she said. “Goon. A white woman, 
was it?” 


99 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Yes, a white woman/ ’ he replied with the first touch 
of bitterness she had seen in him. “A poor devil who 
had fallen so far that she had lost even the scruples of 
her trade. I heard her coughing in the shadow when 
she was some distance from me, and saw her come out 
into the lamplight still breathless, with the shadows mak- 
ing a ruin of her poor painted face. But she had her- 
self in hand ; she was game. At the moment I was near 
enough, she smiled — I suppose the last thing they forget 
is how to smile. ‘Koos!’ she called to me, softly. 
‘Koos!’ ‘Kuos’ is the Taal for cousin, you know; it ’s a 
sort of familiar address. I couldn’t pass her without 
a word, so I stopped. ‘You ought to see to that cough,’ 
I told her. She was horribly surprised, of course, and 
I rather think she started to bolt, but her cough stopped 
her. It was a bad case, that — a very bad case, and of 
course she wasn’t sufficiently clad or nourished. I ad- 
vised her to get home to bed, and she leaned against the 
wall wiping her eyes with the comer of her handkerchief 
wrapped round her finger so as not to smudge the paint, 
and stared at me with a sort of surrender. I got her to 
believe at last that I was what I said — a doctor — ” 

“Are you a doctor?” interrupted Margaret. 

“Yes,” he answered. “I hold the London M.B. ; oh, 
I knew what I was talking about. When she under- 
stood it, she changed at once. She was pretty near the 
end of her tether, and now she had a chance, her first 
chance, to claim some one’s pity. The lives they lead, 
those poor smirched things! She had a landlady; can 
you imagine that landlady? And unless she brought 
money with her, she could not even go back to her lodg- 
ings. She told me all about it, coughing in between, 
under the windows of a huge shopful of delicate 
100 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


women’s wear, with a big arc-light spluttering above 
the empty street and Van Riebeck looking over our heads 
to Table Mountain. Wasn’t it strange — us two home- 
less people, cast out by our own folk and rejected by the 
other color?” 

“Yes,” answered the girl; “very strange and sad.” 

‘ ‘ It was like a dream, ’ ’ said the Kafir. ‘ ‘ It was weird. 
But I like the idea that she accosted a possible customer 
and found a deliverer. I gave her the money she needed, 
of course, and listened to her lungs and wrote her a pre- 
scription on the back of a card she produced. No 
real use, you know — just something to go on with. She 
was past any real help. No use going into details, 
but it was a bad case ! ’ ’ 

He shook his head thoughtfully, in a mood of gloom. 

“And then?” asked Margaret. 

“Oh, then she went away,” he said, “and I watched 
her go. She crossed the road, holding up her skirt clear 
of the mud; she was a neat, appealing little figure in 
spite of everything. She passed with her head drooped 
to the corner opposite and there she turned and waved 
her hand to me, I waved back and she went into the 
shadows. She ’s in the Valley of the Shadows now, 
though ; she had n ’t far to go. 

“But you can’t conceive how still and wonderful it 
was on the jetty, with the water all round and the moon 
making a broad track of beams across it, and over the 
bay the bulk of inland hills massive and inscrutable. It 
was like looking at Africa from a great distance; and 
yet, you know, I was born here!” 

His hands had fallen idle on the clay, but as he ceased 
to speak he began to work again, with eyes cast down to 
his task. The light was already failing, and as the three 
101 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of them waited in the silence that followed on his words, 
there reached them the dull pulse of the gourd-drum at 
the farm, stealing upon their consciousness gradually. 
Paul frowned as he recognized it, coming out of the 
trance of his faculties unwillingly. He had sat motion- 
less with parted lips through the Kafir ’s story, so still in 
his absorption that the others had forgotten his pres- 
ence. 

* 4 That ’s for me,” he said, slowly, but took his time 
about getting up. He was looking at the Kafir with the 
solemn, sincere eyes of a child. 

“I would like,” he said, “to make a clay of that 
woman. ’ ’ 

“Eh!” The Kafir suppressed his smile. “Time 
enough, Paul. Plenty of time and plenty of clay for 
you to do that — and plenty of women, too. ’ ’ 

Paul was on his feet by now, looking down at the 
other two. 

“But,” he hesitated, “I must make it,” he said. “I 
must.” 

The Kafir nodded. “All right,” he said. “You 
make it, Paul, and show it to me. As you see her, you 
know ; that ’s how you must do it. ’ ’ 

“Yes,” said Paul seriously. “Brave and smiling and 
dying. I know ! ’ 7 

The gourd-drum throbbed insistently. He moved to- 
wards it reluctantly. “Good night,” he said. 

‘ ‘ Good night, Paul ! ’ 7 

A moment later he was vague in the growing dusk, 
and they heard his long whistle of answer to the drum. 

Margaret, with her chin propped on her hand, sat on 
the slope of the wall. The Kafir began to put away 
the clay on which he had been working. Paul’s store 
102 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


was an abandoned ant-bear’s hole across which there 
trailed the broad dry leaves of a tenacious gourd. He 
put the unfinished head carefully in this receptacle, and 
then drew from it another object, which he held out to 
the girl. 

“A bit of Paul’s work,” he explained. 

She took it in her hand, but for the time being her in- 
terest in the immaturities of art gave place to the strange 
realities in whose presence she felt herself to be. She 
glanced at it perfunctorily, a little sketch of a woman 
carrying a basket, well observed and sympathetic. 

“Yes,” she answered. “He has a real gift. But just 
now I can’t think about that. I ’m thinking about you.” 

“I ’ve saddened you,” he said. “I didn’t want to 
do that. I should have held my tongue. But if you 
could know what it means to talk to you at all, you ’d 
forgive me. I ’m not regretting, you know; I ’m going 
through it of my own free will; but it ’s a lonely busi- 
ness. I ’m always glad of a tramp making his way along 
the railway line, and Paul was a godsend. But you! 
Oh, you ’ll never understand how splendid it is to tell 
you anything and have you listen to it.” 

He spoke almost humbly, but with a warmth of sin- 
cerity that moved her. 

“You ’ll have to tell me more,” she said. “You ’ll 
be coming here again ? ’ ’ 

“Indeed I will,” he replied quickly. “I ’ll be here 
often, if only in the hope that you ’ll come down to the 
dam sometimes. But — there ’s one thing.” 

“Yes?” asked Margaret. 

“You know, it won’t do for you to be seen with me,” 
he said gently. “It won’t do at all.” 

Margaret laughed. “I think I can bear up against 
103 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


the ill-report of the neighborhood, ’ * she said. “My 
kingdom is not of this particular world. We won’t 
bother about that, please.” 

The Kafir shook his head. 6 ‘ There ’s no help for it, ’ ’ 
he answered. “I must bother about it. It bothers me 
so much that unless you will let me know best in this 
(for I really do know) I ’ll never come this way again. 
Do you think I could bear it, if people talked about 
you for suffering the company of a nigger? You don’t 
know this country. It ’s a dangerous place for people 
who go against its prejudices. So if I am to see you, 
for God’s sake be careful. I ’ll look forward to it like 
— like a sick man looking forward to health ; but not if 
you are to pay for it. Not at that price.” 

“Oh, well!” Margaret found the topic unpleasant. 
“I don’t see any risk. But you ’re rather putting me 
into the position of the bandmaster on the ship, aren’t 
you? I ’m to have the sovereign; that is, I ’m to hear 
what I want to hear; but only when nobody ’s looking. 
However, it shall be as you say. ’ ’ 

“Thank you.” He managed to sound genuinely 
grateful. “You ’re awfully kind to me. You shall 
hear everything you want to hear. Paul can always lay 
hands on me for you. ’ ’ 

Margaret rose to her feet. The evening struck chill 
upon her and she coughed. In the growing dark, the 
Kafir knit his brows at the sound of it. 

“I must be going now,” she said. “Paul didn’t in- 
troduce me after all, did he? But I don’t think it ’s 
necessary. ’ ’ 

She stood a little above him on the slope of the wall, 
a tall, slight figure seen against its dark bulk. 

‘ * I know your name, ’ ’ he answered. 

104 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“And I know yours,” she put in quickly. “Tell me 
if I ’m not right. You ’re Kamis. I ’ve heard about 
you this afternoon.” 

He stared at her for a space of seconds. “Yes,” he 
said slowly. “I ’m Kamis. But — who told you?” 

She laughed quietly. “You see,” she said, “I Ve 
got something to tell, too. Oh, I know lots about you; 
you ’ll have to come and hear that, at any rate. ’ ’ 

She put out her hand to him. 

“Good night, Mr. Kamis,” she said. 

The Kafir bared his head before he took her hand. 
He seemed to have some difficulty in speaking. 

“Good night,” he said. “Good night! I ’ll never 
forget your goodness.” 

He let her go and she turned back to the path that 
should take her past the farmhouse and the kraals to 
the Sanatorium and dinner. At the turn of the wall, 
its lights met her with their dazed, unwinking stare, 
shining from the dining-room which had no part in the 
spacious night of the Karoo and those whose place is in 
the darkness. She had gone a hundred yards before she 
looked back. 

Behind her the western sky treasured still the last 
luminous dregs of day, that leaked from it like water 
one holds in cupped hands. In the middle of it, high 
upon the dam wall, a single human figure, swart and 
motionless, stood to watch her out of sight. 


105 


CHAPTER YII 


OOKS pooty bad for tbe huntin’,’’ remarked Mr. 



Samson suddenly, glancing up from the crinkly 
sheets of the letter he was reading. 4 ‘Here ’s a feller 
writin’ to me that the ground ’s like iron already. You 
hunt, Miss Harding?” 

“Oh, dear, yes,” replied Margaret cheerfully. 
“Lions and elephants and — er — eagles. Such sport, 
you know!” 

“Hah!” Mr. Samson shook his head at her indul- 
gently. “Your grandmother wouldn’t have said that, 
young lady. But you youngsters, you don’t know 
what ’s good for you — by gad ! Eagles, eh ? ” 

Once in a week, breakfast at the Sanatorium gained 
a vivid and even a breathless quality from the fact that 
one found the weekly letters piled between one’s knife 
and fork, as though Mrs. Jakes knew — no doubt she 
did — that her guests would make the chief part of their 
meal on the contents of the envelopes. The Kafir run- 
ner who brought them from the station arrived in the 
early dawn and nobody saw him but Mrs. Jakes; she 
was the human link between the abstractions of the post- 
office and those who had the right to open the letters 
and be changed for the day by their contents. It was 
not invariably that the mail included letters for her, 
and these too would be put in order on the breakfast 
table, under the tap of the urn, and not opened till 
the others were down. Then Mrs. Jakes also, like a 


106 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


well-connected Jack Horner, could pull from the elo- 
quence of her correspondents an occasional plum of in- 
formation to pass round the table. 

“Only think !” she would offer. “The Duchess of 
York has got another baby. Let me see now! How 
many does that make ? ” 

It was always Mr. Samson who was down first on 
mail-mornings, and his was always the largest budget. 
His seat was at the end of the table nearest the window, 
and he would read sitting a little sideways in his chair, 
with the letter held well up to the light and his right 
eyebrow clenched on a monocle. Fat letters of many 
sheets, long letters on thin foreign paper, newspapers, 
circulars — they made up enough to keep him reading the 
whole morning, and thoughtful most of the afternoon. 
From this feast he would scatter crumbs of fashionable 
or sporting intelligence, and always he would have some- 
thing to say about the state of the weather in England 
when the post left, three weeks before. 

“Just think !” he continued. “Frost already — and 
fogs! Frost, Miss Harding; instead of this sultry old 
dust-heap. How does that strike you? Eh?” 

“It leaves me cold,” returned Margaret agreeably. 

“Cold!” he retorted, snorting. “Well, I ’d give 
something to shiver again, something handsome. 
What ’s that you ’re saying, Ford ? 9 9 

Ford had passed a post-card to Mrs. Jakes to read 
and now received it back from her. 

“It ’s Van Zyl,” he replied. “He writes that he T1 
be coming past this afternoon, about tea time, and he T1 
look in. I was telling Mrs. Jakes.” 

“Good!” said Mr. Samson. 

“It ’s a man I know,” Ford explained to Margaret. 

107 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Ho looks me up occasionally. He ’s in the Cape 
Mounted Police and a Dutchman. You ’ll be in for 
tea?” 

“When somebody ’s coming? Of course I will,” said 
Margaret. ‘ ‘ A policeman, is he ? ” 

“Yes,” answered Ford. “He ’s a sub-inspector, an 
officer ; but he was a trooper three years ago, and he ’s 
quite a chap to know. You see what you think of him.” 

“I ’ll look at him carefully,” said Margaret. “But 
tell me some more, please! Is he a mute, inglorious 
Sherlock Holmes, or what?” 

Ford laughed. “No,” he said. “No, it ’s not that 
sort of thing, at all. It ’s just that he ’s a noticeable 
person, don ’t you know ? He ’s the kind of chap who ’s 
simply born to put into a uniform and astride of a horse ; 
you ’ll see what I mean when he comes.” 

Mrs. Jakes leaned to the right to catch Margaret’s 
eye round the urn. 

“My dear,” she said seriously. “Mr. Van Zyl is the 
image of a perfect gentleman.” 

“All right!” said Margaret. “Between you, you ’ve 
filled me with the darkest forebodings. But so long as 
it ’s a biped, and without feathers, I ’ll do my best. ’ ’ 

Her own letters were three in number. One was from 
an uncle who was also her solicitor and trustee, the 
source of checks and worldly counsel. His letter 
opened playfully; the legal uncle, writing in the inner 
chamber of his offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, hoped 
that she did not find the local fashions in dress irk- 
some, and made reference to three mosquitos and a 
smile. The break of a paragraph brought him to 
business matters and the epistle concluded with an al- 
lusion to the effect of a Liberal Government on markets. 

108 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

It was, thought Margaret, a compact revelation of the 
whole mind of the legal uncle, and wondered why she 
should get vaguely impatient with his implied sugges- 
tion that she was in an uncivilized country. The next 
was from the strong-minded aunt who had imposed aus- 
terity upon her choice of clothes for her travels — a Chi- 
nese cracker of a letter, detonating along three sheets in 
crisp misstatements that had the outward form of epi- 
grams. The aunt related, tersely, her endeavor to cul- 
tivate a physique with Indian clubs and the consequent 
accident to her maid. “But arms like pipe-stems can 
be trusted to break like pipe-stems/ ’ she concluded 
hardily. “I ’ve given her cash and a character, and 
the new one is fat. No pipe-stems about her, though 
she bruises with the least touch !” 

These two she read at the breakfast table, drinking 
from her coffee-cup between the bottom of one sheet 
and the top of the next, savoring them for a vintage 
gone flat and perished. It came to her that their writers 
lived as in dim glass cases, seeing the world beyond 
their own small scope as a distance of shadows, inde- 
terminate and void, while trivialities and toys that were 
close to them bulked like impending doom. She laid 
down the legal uncle in the middle of a sentence to 
hear of Yan Zyl and did not look back to pick up the 
context when she resumed her reading. The legal 
uncle, in her theory, had no context; he ranked as a 
printer’s error. It was the third letter which she car- 
ried forth when she left the table, to read again on the 
stoep. 

The jargon of the art schools saves its practitioners 
much trouble in accounting for those matters and things 
which come under their observation, since a phrase is 
109 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


frequently indistinguishable from a fact and very filling 
at the price. But Margaret was not ready with a name 
for that quality in the third letter which caused her 
to read it through again and linger out its substance. 
It was from a girl who had been her school-fellow and 
later her friend, and later still a gracious and rarely- 
seen acquaintance, smiling a welcome at chance meet- 
ings and ever remoter and more abstracted from those 
affairs which occupied Margarets days. The name of 
a Kensington square stood at the head of her letter 
as her address; Margaret knew it familiarly, from the 
grime on the iron railings which held its melancholy 
garden a prisoner, to the deep areas of its houses that 
gave one in passing glimpses of spacious kitchens under 
the roots of the dwellings. Three floors up from the 
pavement, Amy Holly er, in her brown-papered room, 
with the Rossetti prints on the wall and the Heleu 
etching above the mantel, had set her mild and earnest 
mind on paper for Margaret’s reading, news, comment, 
small jest and smaller dogma, a gentle trickle of gossip 
about things and people who were already vague in the 
past. It was little, it was trivial, but through it there 
ran, like the red thread in a ripping-cord, a vein of 
zest, of sheer gusto in the movement and thrill of 
things. It suggested an ant lost in a two-inch high 
forest of lawn-grass, but it rendered, too, some of the 
ant’s passionate sense of adventure. 

“She ’s alive,” thought Margaret, laying the letter 
at last in her lap. 4 'Dear old Amy, what a wonderful 
world she lives in ! But then, she ’d furnish any world 
with complications.” 

Twenty feet way, Ford had his little easel between 
his outstretched legs and was frowning absorbedly irom 

110 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


it to the Karoo and back again. Twenty feet away on 
her other side, Mr. Samson was crackling a three-weeks- 
old copy of The Morning Post into readable dimen- 
sions. Before her, across the railing of the stoep, the 
Karoo lifted its blind face to the gathering might of 
the sun. 

“Even this,” continued Margaret. “She ’d find this 
inexhaustible. She was bom with an appetite for life. 
I seem to have lost mine.” 

From the great front door emerged to the daylight 
the solid rotundity of Fat Mary, billowing forth on 
flat bare feet and carrying in her hand a bunch of the 
long crimson plumes of the aloe, that spiky free-lance of 
the veld which flaunts its red cockade above the abomi- 
nation of desolation. Fat Mary spied Margaret and 
came padding towards her, her smile lighting up her 
vast black face with the effect of “some great illumina- 
tion surprising a festal night. ’ ’ 

“For Missis,” she remarked, offering the crimson 
bunch. 

Margaret sat up in her chair with an exclamation. 
“Flowers!” she said. “Are they flowers? They’re 
more like great thick feathers. Where did you get them, 
Mary ? ’ 9 

Fat Mary giggled awkwardly. “A Kafir bring 
’um,” she explained. “He say — for Missis Harding, 
an’ give me a ticky (a threepenny piece). Fool — that 
Kafir!” 

Margaret stared, holding the fat, fleshy crimson 
things in her hands. 

“Oh!” she said, understanding. “Where is he, 
Mary? The Kafir, I mean?” 

Fat Mary shook her head placidly. “Gone,” she 

m 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


said; and waved a great hand to the utter distance of 
the heat haze. “That Kafir gone, Missis. He come 
before breakfus’; Missis in bed. Say for Missis 
Harding an’ give me ticky. Fool! Talk English — 
an’ boots !” 

She shrugged mightily to express the distrust and 
contempt she could not put into words. 

“Boots !” she repeated darkly. 

“Well,” said Margaret, “they ’re very pretty, any- 
how. ’ ’ 

Fat Mary wrinkled her nose. * ‘ Stink, ’ ’ she observed. 
“Missis smell ’em. Stink like a hell! Missis throw 
’um away.” 

Margaret looked at the stout woman and smiled. 
Fat Mary’s hostility to the Kafir and the aloe plumes 
and the ticky was' plainly the fruit of jealousy. 

“I won’t throw them away yet,” she said. “I want 
to look at them first. But did you know the Kafir, 
Mary ? ’ ’ 

“Me!” Fat Mary drew herself up. “No, Missis 
— not know that skellum. Never see him before. 
What for that Kafir come here, an’ bring stink-flowers 
to my Missis? An’ boots? Fool, that Kafir! Fool!” 

“All right, Mary,” said Margaret, concilia tingly. 
“Very likely he won’t come again. So never mind this 
time. ’ ’ 

Fat Mary smiled ruefully. Most of her emotions 
found expressions in smiles. 

“That Kafir come again,” she said thoughtfully, 
“I punch ’im!” 

And comforted by this resolve, she retired along 
the stone stoep and betook herself once more to her 
functions indoors. 


112 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


At his post further along the stoep, Ford was look- 
ing up with a smile, for the sounds of Fat Mary’s 
grievance had reached him. Margaret did not notice 
his attention; she was turning over the great bouquet 
of cold flaunting flowers which had come to her out of 
the wilderness, as though to remind her that at the 
heart of it there was a voice crying. 

Ford’s friend was punctual to his promise to arrive 
for tea. Upon the stroke of half-past four he reined 
in his big horse at the foot of the steps and swung 
stiffly from the saddle. He came, indeed, with cir- 
cumstances of pomp, armed men riding before him and 
captives padding in the dust between them. Old Mr. 
Samson sighted him while he was yet afar off and 
cried the news and the others came to look. 

“Who ’s he got with him?” demanded Mr. Samson, 
fumbling his papers into the pockets of his writing 
case. “Looks like a bally army. Can you see what 
it is, Ford?” 

Ford was staring with narrowed eyes through the 
sunshine. 

“Yes,” he said slowly. “He ’s got prisoners. But 
what ’s he bringing them here for?” 

i 1 Prisoners ? Oh, do let me look ! ’ 9 

Margaret came to his side and followed his pointing 
finger with her eyes. A blot of haze was moving very 
slowly towards them over the surface of the ground, 
and through it as she watched there broke here and 
there the shapes of men and horses traveling in that 
cloud of dust. 

“Why, they’re miles away,” she exclaimed. 
“They ’ll be hours yet.” 

“Say half-an-hour, ” suggested Ford, his face still 

8 113 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


puckered with the effort to see. “They ’re moving 
briskly, yon know. He ’s shoving them along . 9 ’ 

“But why prisoners?” enquired Margaret. “What 
prisoners could he get on the Karoo? There ’s nobody 
to arrest.” 

“Van Zyl seems to have found somebody, anyhow,” 
answered Ford. “I had a glimpse of people on foot. 
But I can’t imagine why he brings ’em here.” 

“Ask him,” suggested Mr. Samson. “What ’s your 
hurry? Wait till he comes and then ask him.” 

First Mrs. Jakes and then the doctor joined the 
spectators on the stoep as the party drew out of the 
distance and defined itself as a string of Kafirs on 
foot, herded upon their way by five Cape Mounted Police 
with a tall young officer riding in the rear. It was 
a monstrous phenomenon to emerge thus from the 
vagueness and mystery of the haze, and Margaret 
uttered a sharp exclamation of distress as it came 
close and showed itself in all its miserable detail. 
There were perhaps twenty Kafirs, men and women 
both, dusty, lean creatures with the eyes, at once timor- 
ous and untameable, of wild animals. They shuffled 
along dejectedly, their feet lifting the dust in spurts 
and wreaths, their backs bent to the labor of the 
journey. Three or four of the men were handcuffed 
together, and these made the van of the unhappy body, 
but save for these fetters, there was nothing to distin- 
guish one from another. Their separate individuali- 
ties seemed merged in a single slavishness, and as they 
turned their heads to look at the white people ele- 
vated on the stoep, they showed only a row of white 
hopeless eyes. Beside them as they plodded, the tall 
beautiful horses had a look of nonchalance and superior- 
114 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


ity, and the mounted men, bored and thirsty, looked 
over their heads as perfunctorily as drovers keeping 
watch on docile cattle. 

“How horrible !” said Margaret, in a low voice, for 
the officer, followed by an orderly, was at the foot of 
the steps. 

The prisoners and their guards did not halt; they 
continued their way past the house and on towards the 
opposite horizon. Their backs, as they departed, 
showed gray with clinging dust. 

Sub-Inspector Yan Zyl, booted and spurred, trim in 
his dust-smirched blue uniform, with his holster at 
his hip and the sling across his tight chest, lifted his 
hand in the abrupt motions of a salute as he received 
Mrs. Jakes’ greeting. 

“Kind of you,” he said, with a sort of curt cordiality 
and the least touch in life of the thick Dutch accent. 
“Most kind! Tea ’s the very thing I ’d like. Thank 
you.” 

At sight of Margaret, grave and young, as different 
from Mrs. Jakes as if she had been of another sex, 
a slight spark lit in his eye for a moment and there was 
an even stronger abruptness of formality in his salute. 
His curiously direct gaze rested upon her several times 
during the administration of tea in the drawing-room, 
where he sat upright in his chair, with knees apart, 
as though he were still astride of a horse. He was a 
man made as by design for the wearing of official 
cloth. His blunt, neatly-modeled Dutch face, blond as 
straw where it was not tanned to the hue of the earth 
of the Karoo, had the stolid, responsible cast that is the 
ensign of military authority. His uniform stood on 
him like a skin; and his mere unconsciousness of the 
115 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


spurs on his boots and the revolver on his hip 
strengthened his effect of a man habituated to the pano- 
ply and accoutrement of war. Even his manners, pre- 
cise and ordered like a military exercise, never slack- 
ened into humanity; the Dutch Sub-Inspector of Cape 
Mounted Police might have been a Prussian Lieutenant 
with the eyes of the world on him. 

“Timed myself to get here for tea,” he explained to 
Ford. “Just managed it, though. Hot work trav- 
eling, to-day.” 

Hotter, thought Margaret, for those of his travel- 
ing companions who had no horses under them, and who 
would not arrive anywhere in time for tea. 

“You seem to have made a bag,” replied Ford. 
“What ’s been the trouble?” 

“Fighting and looting,” answered Sub-Inspector 
lYan Zyl carelessly. “A row between two kraals, you 
know, and a man killed. ’ ’ 

“Any resistance?” enquired Ford. 

“A bit,” said Van Zyl. “My sergeant got his head 
split open with an axe. Those niggers in the south 
are an ugly lot and they ’ll always fight. You see, it ’s 
only about twenty years ago they were at war with us ; 
it ’ll need another twenty to knock the fighting tradi- 
tion out of ’em.” 

“They looked meek enough as they passed,” re- 
marked Ford. “There didn’t seem to be a kick left 
among them.” 

Van Zyl nodded over the brim of his tea-cup. 
“There isn’t,” he said shortly. “They’ve had the 
kick taken out of ’em.” 

He drank imperturbably, and Margaret had a mo- 
mentary blurred vision of defeated, captured Kafirs in 

116 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


the process of having the kick extracted from them and 
the serene, fair-haired snb-inspector superintending its 
removal with unruffled, professional calm. 

“Been here long, Miss Harding ?” 

Van Zyl addressed her suddenly across the room. 

“Not quite long enough to understand/ ’ she re- 
plied. “Did you say those poor creatures were fighting 
— among themselves?” 

“Yes.” 

“But why?” she persisted. “What did they fight 
for?” 

He shrugged his neat shoulders. “Why does a 
Kafir do anything?” he enquired. “They told a cock- 
and-bull story that seems to be getting fashionable 
among them of late, about a son of one of their old 
chiefs appearing among them dressed like a white man. 
He went from kraal to kraal, talking English and 
giving money, and at one kraal the headman, an old 
chap who used to be a native constable of ours, actu- 
ally seems to have laid his stick across some wandering 
nigger who couldn’t explain what he wanted. The 
next kraal heard of this, and decided at once that a 
chief had been insulted, and the next thing was a fight 
and the old headman with an assegai through him. 
But if you want my opinion, Miss Harding — it does n ’t 
make such a good story, but I ’ve had to do with niggers 
all my life — ” 

“Yes?” said Margaret. “Tell me.” 

“Well,” said Van Zyl, “my opinion is that if the old 
headman had n ’t been the owner of twelve head of cattle, 
all ready to be stolen, he might have gone on whacking 
stray Kafirs all his life without hurting anybody’s 
feelings.” 


117 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“ Except theirs,” suggested Mr. Samson. “Hah, 
ha! Except the chaps that he whacked — what?” 

“Quite so!” Sub-Inspector Van Zyl smiled politely. 
“He was a vigorous old gentleman, and rather given 
to laying about him with anything that came handy. 
Probably picked up the habit in the police; the Kafir 
constables are always pretty rough with people of their 
own color. Anyhow, he ’s done for; they drove a stab- 
bing assegai clean through him and pinned him to a 
post of his own hut. I think I ’ve got the nigger that 
did it.” 

Mrs. Jakes at the tea-table shook her skirts ap- 
plaudingly. At any rate, the rustle of them as she 
shook came in like applause at the tail of the sub- 
inspector’s narrative. 

“He ought to be hanged,” she said. 

“He will be,” said the sub-inspector. “But we ’re 
not at the bottom of it yet. There is a fellow, so far 
as I can find out, coming and going on the Karoo, 
dressed in clothes and talking a sort of English. He ’s 
the man I want.” 

“What for?” demanded Margaret, and knew that 
she had spoken too sharply. Van Zyl seemed to remark 
it, too, for his eye dwelt on her inquiringly for a couple 
of seconds before he replied. 

“It’ll probably be sedition,” he replied. “The 
whole lot of ’em are uneasy down in the south there 
and we ’re strengthening our posts. No!” he said, to 
Mrs. Jakes’ exclamation; “there’s no danger. Not 
the slightest danger. But if we could just lay hands 
on that wandering nigger who talks English — ” 

He left the sentence unfinished, and his nod signi- 
fied that dire experiences awaited the elusive Kafir 
118 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


when he should come into the strong hands of author- 
ity. The Cape Mounted Police, he replied, would cure 
him of his eccentricities. 

He passed on to talk with Ford and Mrs. Jakes about 
common acquaintances, officers in the police and the 
Rifles and people who lived in Dopfontein, sixty miles 
away, and belonged to a tennis club. Then the sound 
of the softly-closing door advertised them of the tiptoe 
departure of Dr. Jakes, and soon afterwards Van Zyl 
rose and announced that he must leave to overtake 
his party. 

“If you can come to Dopfontein, Miss Harding,’ ’ 
he said, as he took his leave, “hope you ’ll let me 
know. Decent little place; we ’ll try to amuse you.” 

The orderly, refreshed but dusty still, came quickly 
to attention as the sub-inspector appeared in the door- 
way, and his pert cockney face took on the blankness 
proper to discipline. At a window above, Fat Mary 
shed admiring glances upon him, and a certain rigor 
of demeanor might have been taken to indicate that 
the warrior was not unconscious of them. He looked 
back over his shoulder as he cantered off in the wake 
of the sub-inspector. 

“What ’s the trouble?” asked Ford, discreetly, as 
the sun-warmed dust fluffed up and enveloped the 
riders in a soft cloud of bronze. 

Margaret turned impatiently from looking after 
them. 

“I hate cruelty,” she said, irritably. 

Ford looked at her shrewdly. “Of course you do,” 
he said. “But Van Zyl ’s not cruel. What he said 
is true ; he ’s been among Kafirs all his life. ’ ’ 

“And learned nothing,” retorted Margaret. “It ’s 
119 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


beastly; it’s just beastly. He can’t even think they 
ever mean well; they only fight to steal, according to 
him. And then he ‘takes the kick out of them!’ 
Some day he ’ll work himself up to crucify one of 
them. ’ ’ 

“Hold on,” said Ford. “You mustn’t get ex- 
cited; you know, Jakes doesn’t allow it. And you ’re 
really not quite just to Van Zyl.” 

“Isn’t he proud of it?” asked Margaret scornfully. 

“I wonder,” said Ford. “But it ’s just as likely 
he ’s proud of policing a smallpox district single- 
handed and playing priest and nurse when he was 
only paid to be jailer and executioner. He got his pro- 
motion for that.” 

“Mr. Van Zyl did that?” asked Margaret incredu- 
lously. “Did he arrange to have the deaths over in 
time for tea?” 

Ford laughed shortly. “You must ask him,” he 
replied. “He ’ll probably say he did. He ’s very 
fond of tea. But at any rate, he sees as much down- 
right hard fighting in a year as a man in the army 
might see in a lifetime and — ” he looked at Margaret 
out of the corners of his eyes — “the Kafirs swear by 
him. ’ ’ 

“The Kafirs do?” asked Margaret incredulously. 

“They swear by him,” Ford assured her. “You try 
Fat Mary some time ; she ’ll tell you. ’ ’ 

“Oh, well,” said Margaret; “I don’t know. Things 
are beastly, anyhow, aod I don’t know which is 
worse — cruelty to Kafirs or the Kafirs’ apparent enjoy- 
ment of it. That man has made me miserable.” 

Ford frowned. “Don’t be miserable,” he said, 
awkwardly. “I hate to think you ’re unhappy. You 
120 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


know,” he went on, more fluently as an argument 
opened out ahead of him, “you ’ve no business really 
to concern yourself with such things. You don’t be- 
long among them. You ’re a bird of passage, just perch- 
ing for a moment on your way through, and you 
must n ’t eat the local worms. It ’s poaching. ’ ’ 

“There ’s nothing else to eat,” replied Margaret 
lugubriously. 

“You should have brought your knitting,” said 
Ford. “You really should! Capital thing for stay- 
ing the pangs of hunger, knitting!” 

“Thank you,” said Margaret. “You ’re very good. 
But I prefer worms. Not so cloying, you know ! ’ ’ 

She did not, however, act upon Ford’s suggestion to 
ask Fat Mary about the sub-inspector. Even as rats 
are said to afford the means of travel to the bacillus 
of bubonic plague, it is probable that the worms of a 
country furnish vehicles for native prejudices and 
habits of mind. At any rate, when Margaret sur- 
veyed Fat Mary, ballooning about the room and creased 
with gaiety, there came to her that sense of the impro- 
priety of discussing a white man with her handmaid 
which is at the root of South African etiquette. 

“Them flowers gone,” announced Fat Mary tran- 
quilly, when Margaret was in bed and she was pre- 
paring to depart. 

“Gone! Where?” asked Margaret. 

“I throw ’um away,” was the contented answer. 
“Stink — pah! So I throw ’um. Goo’ night, missis.” 


121 


CHAPTER VIII 


D ON’T you some times feel,” asked Margaret, 
1 1 as though dullness had gone as far as it pos- 
sibly can go, and something surprising simply must 
happen soon?” 

Ford glanced cautiously about him before he an- 
swered. 

“Lots of things might happen any minute to some 
of us,” he said. “You haven’t been ill enough to 
know, but we are n ’t all keen for surprises. ’ ’ 

It was evening, and the big lamp that hung from 
the ceiling in the middle of the drawing-room breathed 
a faint fragrance of paraffin upon the inhabitants of 
the Sanatorium assembled beneath it. From the piano 
which stood against the wall, Mrs. Jakes had removed 
its usual load of photographs and ornamental pottery, 
and now, with her back to her fellow creatures, was 
playing the intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana.” 
Her small hands moving upon the keys showed the red 
knuckles and uneven nails which had come to her since 
first she learned that composition within earshot of 
the diapason of trains passing by Clapham Junction, 
mightily challenging her laborious tinkle-tinkle, and 
with as little .avail as now the night of the Karoo 
challenged it. Like her gloves and her company man- 
ners, it stood between her shrinking spirit and those 
poignant realities which might otherwise have over- 
thrown her. So when she came to the end of it she 
122 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


turned back the pages of the score which was propped 
before her, and without glancing at the notes, played 
it through again. 

“For instance,” whispered Ford, under cover of the 
music; “look at Jakes. He carries a catastrophe about 
with him, don’t you think?” 

The doctor was ranging uneasily to and fro on the 
hearth-rug, where the years of his exile were recorded 
in patches worn bare by his feet. There was already 
a change to be remarked in him since Margaret had first 
made his acquaintance ; some of his softness and appeal- 
ing guiltiness was gone and he was a little more desper- 
ate and unresponsive. She had mentioned this once to 
Ford, who had frowned and replied, “Yes, he ’s show- 
ing the strain.” She looked at him now covertly. He 
was walking to and fro before the empty fireplace with 
quick, unequal steps and the fingers of one hand 
fidgeted about his mouth. His eyes, flickering back 
and forth, showed an almost frantic impatience; poor 
Mrs. Jakes’ melodious noises that smoothed balm upon 
her soul were evidently making havoc with his nerves. 
He seemed to have forgotten, in the stress of his misery, 
that others were present to see him and enter his dis- 
ordered demeanor upon their lists of his shortcomings. 
As he faced towards her, Margaret saw the sideward 
sag of his mouth under his meager, fair mustache and 
the panic of his white eyeball upturned. His decent 
black clothes only accentuated the strangeness of him. 

“He looks dreadful,” she said; “dreadful. 
Ought n ’t you to go to him — or something ? ’ ’ 

“No use.” Ford shook his head. “7 know. But 
I wish he ’d go to his study, all the same. If he stays 
here he may break down. ’ ’ 


123 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Why doesn’t he go?” asked Margaret. 

“He can’t make up his mind. He ’s at that stage 
when to decide to do anything is an effort. And yet the 
chap ’s suffering for the only thing that will give his 
nerves relief. Can’t help pitying him, in spite of every- 
thing, w T hen you see him like that.” 

4 ‘Pitying him — yes,” agreed Margaret. Mrs. Jakes 
with her foot on the soft pedal, was beginning the in- 
termezzo again for the fifth time and slurring it 
dreamily to accord with her brief mood of contentment 
and peace. 

“You know,” Margaret went on, “it ’s awfully queer, 
really, that I should be in the same room with a man 
in that condition. Three months ago, I couldn’t have 
borne it. Except sometimes on the streets, I don’t 
think I ’d ever seen a drunken man. I must have 
changed since then in some way.” 

“Learned something, perhaps,” suggested Ford. 
“But you were saying you found things dull. Well, 
it just struck me that you ’d only got to lift up your 
eyes to see the makings of a drama, and while you ’re 
looking on, your lungs are getting better. Aren’t you 
a bit hard to satisfy ? ’ ’ 

“Am I? I wonder.” They were seated at opposite 
ends of a couch which faced them to the room, and 
the books which they had abandoned — loose-backed, 
much-handled novels from the doctor’s inelastic stock 
of literature — lay face down between them. Margaret 
looked across them at Ford with a smile ; he had always 
a reasonable answer to her complainings. 

“You don’t take enough stock in human nature,” he 
said seriously. “Too fastidious— that ’s what you are, 
and it makes you miss a lot.” 

124 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“ Perhaps you ’re right,” she answered. “I ’ve been 
thinking something of the kind myself. A letter I had 
— from a girl at home — put it in my mind. She writes 
me six sheets all about the most trivial and futile 
things you can imagine, but she speaks of them with 
bated breath, as it were. If only she were here in- 
stead of me, she ’d be simply thrilled. I wish you knew 
her. ’ ’ 

“I wish I did,” he said. “I ’ve always had an idea 
that the good Samaritan was a prying, inquisitive kind 
of chap, and that ’s really what made him cross the 
road to the other fellow. He wanted to know what 
was up, in the first place, and the rest followed.” 

4 ‘Whereas — ” prompted Margaret. “Go on. 

What ’s the moral?” 

Ford laughed. “The moral is that there ’s plenty 
to see if you only look for it, ’ ’ he answered. 

“I ’ve seen one thing, at any rate, without looking 
for it, since I ’ve been here,” retorted Margaret. 
“Something you don’t know anything about, Mr. 
Ford.” 

“What was that?” he demanded. “Nothing about 
Jakes, was it?” 

“No; nothing about him.” 

She hesitated. She had it in her mind to speak to 
him about the Kafir, Kamis, and share with him that 
mystery in return for the explanations which he could 
doubtless give of its less comprehensible features. But 
at that moment Mrs. Jakes ceased playing and began 
to put the score away. 

“I ’ll tell you another time,” she promised, and 
picked up her book again. 

The cessation of the music seemed to release Dr. 

125 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Jakes from the spell which had been holding him. He 
stopped walking to and fro and strove to master him- 
self for the necessary moment before his departure. 
He turned a writhen, twitching face on his wife. 

4 ‘You played it again and again,” he said, with a sort 
of dull resentment. 

Mrs. Jakes looked up at him swiftly, with fear in her 
eyes. 

“Don’t you like it, Eustace?” she asked. 

He only stared without answering, and she went on 
speaking hurriedly to cover him. 

“It always seems to me such a sweet piece,” she said. 
“So haunting. Don’t you think so, Miss Harding? 
I ’ve always liked it. I remember there was a tea- 
room in Oxford Street where they used to have a 
band in the afternoons — just fiddles and a piano — 
and they used to play it there. Many ’s the time I ’ve 
dropped in for a cup of tea when I was shopping — 
not for the tea but just to sit and listen. Their 
tea wasn’t good, for the matter of that, but lots of 
people went, all the same. Tyler ’s, was the name, 
I remember now. Do you know Tyler’s, Miss Hard- 
ing?” 

She was making it easy for the doctor to get away, 
after his custom, but either the enterprise of making a 
move was too difficult for him or else an unusual per- 
versity possessed him. At any rate, he did not go. 
He stood listening with an owlish intentness to her 
nervous babble. 

“I know Tyler’s very well,” answered Margaret, 
coming to her aid. “Jolly useful place it is, too. But 
I don ’t remember the band. ’ ’ 

“7 used to go to the Queen’s Hall,” put in Dr. 

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Jakes hoarsely. “ Monday afternoons, when I could 
get away. And afterwards, have dinner in Soho. ,, 

From the window, where Mr. Samson lay in an arm- 
chair in apparent torpor, came a wheeze, and the single 
word, ‘ ‘ Simpson ’s.” 

Margaret laughed. “How sumptuous,” she said. 
4 ‘Now, Mr. Ford, you tell us where you used to go.” 

“Club,” answered Ford, promptly. “I had to have 
something for my subscription, you know, so I went 
there and read the papers.” 

Mrs. Jakes was watching her husband anxiously, 
while Ford and Margaret took up the burden of incon- 
sequent talk and made a screen of trivialities for her. 
But to-night Dr. Jakes needed expression as much as 
whisky; there was the hopeless, ineffectual anger of a 
baited animal in his stare as he faced them. 

“Why aren’t any of you looking at me?” he said 
suddenly. 

None answered; only Mr. Samson sat up on his 
creaking armchair of basketwork with an amazed, 
“Eh? What ’s that?” Margaret stared helplessly 
and Mrs. Jakes, white-faced and tense, murmured im- 
ploringly, “Eustace.” 

“Dodging with your eyes and babbling about tea- 
shops,” said the doctor hotly. “You think, because 
a man ’s a bit — ” 

“Eustace,” cried Mrs. Jakes, clasping her hands. 
“Eustace dear.” 

It was wonderful to notice how her habit of tone held 
good in that peril which whitened her face and made 
her tremble from head to foot as she stood. From her 
voice alone, one would have implied no more than some 
playful extravagance on the doctor’s part; she still 
127 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

hoped that it could be carried off on the plane of small 
affairs. 

“You would go out without a proper hat on, Jakes,’ ’ 
said Ford suddenly. “Feel stuffy in the head, don’t 
you ? ’ ’ 

“What do you mean — stuffy?” demanded Jakes. 

But already the vigor that had spurred him to a 
demonstration was exhausted and the need for alcohol, 
the burning physical famine for nerve-reinforcement, 
had him in its grip. 

“Stuffy?” repeated Ford, watching him closely. 
“Oh, you know what I mean. I ’ve seen chaps like it 
heaps of times after a day in the sun; they get the 
queerest fancies. You really ought to get a proper hat, 
though.” 

Mrs. Jakes took him by the arm persuasively. 
“Don’t you think you ’d better lie down for a bit, 
Eustace — in the study?” 

“In the study?” He blinked twice or thrice pain- 
fully, and made an endeavor to smile. “Yes, perhaps. 
This — er — stuffy feeling, you know — yes.” 

His wife’s arm steered him to the door, and once out 
of the room he dropped it and fairly bolted across the 
echoing hall to his refuge. In the drawing-room they 
heard his eager feet and the slam of the door that 
shut him in to his miserable deliverance from pain, 
and the double snap of the key that locked out the world 
and its censorious eyes. 

“You — you just managed it,” said Margaret to 
Ford. The queer inconsequent business had left her 
rather breathless. “But wasn’t it horrible?” 

“Some day we shan’t be able to talk him down, and 
then it ’ll be worse, ’ ’ answered Ford soberly. 4 ‘ That ’ll 
128 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


be the end for Mrs. Jakes’ home. But you played up 
all right, you know. You did the decent thing, and in 
just the right way. And I was glad, because, you 
know, I ’ve never been quite sure how you ’d shape.” 

“You thought I ’d scream for help, I suppose,” sug- 
gested Margaret. 

“No,” he replied slowly. “But I often wondered 
whether, when the time came, you ’d go to your room 
or stay and lend a hand. Not that you wouldn’t be 
quite right to stand out, for it ’s a foul business, all 
this, and there ’s nothing pretty in it. Still, taking 
sides is a sign of life in one’s body — and I ’m glad.” 

“That ’s all right, then,” said Margaret. “And 
it ’s enough about me for the present, too. You said 
that some day it won’t be possible any more to talk him 
down. Did you mean — some day soon? 9 9 

“Goodness knows,” said Ford. He leaned back and 
turned his head to look over the back of the couch at 
Mr. Samson. “Samson,” he called. 

“Yes; what?” 

“That was bad, eh! What ’s the meaning of it?” 

Mr. Samson blew out his breath windily and un- 
crossed his thin legs. “Don’t care to go into it before 
Miss Harding,” he said pointedly. 

“Oh, bother,” exclaimed Margaret. “Don’t you 
think I want to know too ? ’ ’ 

“Well, then,” said Mr. Samson, with careful delib- 
eration, “since you ask me, I ’d say it was a touch 
of the horrors casting its shadow before. He doesn’t 
exactly see things, y’know, but that’s what’s com- 
ing. Next thing he knows, he ’ll see snakes or cuttle- 
fish or rats all round the room and he ’ll — he ’ll gibber. 
Sorry, Miss Harding, but you wanted to know.” 

^ 129 


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‘ 1 But — but — ” Margaret stared aghast at the feeble, 
urbane old man asprawl in the wicker chair, who spoke 
with genial authority on these matters of shadowy hor- 
ror. “But how can you possibly know all this?” 

Mr. Samson smiled. He considered it fitting and 
rather endearing that a young woman should be ig- 
norant of such things and easily shocked when they 
were revealed. 

“Seen it all before, my dear young lady,” he assured 
her. “It ’s natural you should be surprised, but it ’s 
not so uncommon as you think. Why, I remember, 
once, in ’87, a feller gettin’ out of a cab because he said 
there was a bally great python there — a feller I knew ; a 
member of Parliament.” 

Margaret looked at Ford, who nodded. 

“He knows all right,” he said, quietly. “But I 
don’t think you need be nervous. When it comes to 
that, we ’ll have to do something.” 

“I ’m not nervous — not in that way, at least,” said 
Margaret. ‘ ‘ Only — must it come to that ? Is n ’t there 
anything that can be done?” 

“If we got a doctor here, the chances are he ’d report 
the matter to the authorities,” said Ford. “This place 
is licensed or certified or something, and that would be 
the end of it. And then, even if there was n ’t that, it 
isn’t easy to put the matter to Mrs. Jakes.” 

“I — I suppose not,” agreed Margaret thoughtfully. 
“Still, if you decided it was necessary — you and Mr. 
Samson — I ’d be willing to help as far as I could. I 
wouldn’t like to see Mrs. Jakes suffer for lack of any- 
thing I could do.” 

“That ’s good of you,” answered Ford. “I mean — 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


good of you, really. We won’t leave yon out of it when 
the time comes, because we shall need you.” 

“ Always knew Miss Harding was a sportsman,” came 
unexpectedly from Mr. Samson in the rear. And then 
the handle of the door, which was loose and arbitrary 
in its workings, rattled warningly and Mrs. Jakes re- 
appeared. 

She made a compunctious mouth, and expressed with 
headshakes a sense that all was not well, though per- 
fectly natural and proper, with the doctor. Her eyes 
seemed rather to dwell on Margaret as she gave her bul- 
letin. 

“Mr. Ford was perfectly right about the hat,” she 
said. “Perfectly right. He ought to have one of those 
white ones with a pugaree. He never was really strong, 
you know, and the sun goes to his head at once. 
But what can I do? He simply won’t listen to me 
when I tell him we ought to go Home. The number 
of times I ’ve said to him, 1 Eustace, give it up ; it ’s 
killing you, Eustace,’ — you wouldn’t believe. But 
he ’s lying down now, and I think he ’ll be better pres- 
ently.” 

Mr. Samson spoke again from the background. He 
didn’t believe in hitting a man when he was down, Mr. 
Samson didn’t. 

“Better have that pith helmet of mine,” he suggested. 
“That ’s the thing for him, Mrs. Jakes. No sense in 
losin’ time while you ’re writin’ to hatters — what?” 

“You ’re very good, Mr. Samson,” answered Mrs. 
Jakes, gratefully, pausing by the piano. “I ’ll men- 
tion it to the doctor in the morning; I ’m sure he ’ll be 
most obliged. He ’s — he ’s greatly troubled, in case any 
13X 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of you should feel — well — annoyed, you know, at any- 
thing he said.” 

4 ‘Poor Dr. Jakes,” said Margaret. “Of course not,” 
chorused the others. “Don’t know what he means,” 
added Mr. Samson. 

Mrs. 'Jakes looked from one to another, collecting 
their responses and reassuring herself. 

“He ’ll be so glad,” she said. “And now, I wonder 
— would you mind if I just played the intermezzo a lit- 
tle again?” 

The easy gradual cadences of the music resumed its 
government of the room as Mrs. Jakes called up images 
of less poignant days to aid her in her extremity, sit- 
ting under the lamplight very upright and little upon 
the pedestal stool. For the others also, those too fa- 
miliar strains induced a mood of reflection, and Mar- 
garet fell back on a word of Ford’s that had grappled 
at her mind and fallen away again. His mention of 
the need of a doctor and the difficulty of obtaining one 
who could be relied upon to keep a shut mouth concern- 
ing Dr. Jakes’ affairs returned to her, and brought 
with it the figure of Kamis, mute, inglorious, with his 
London diploma, wasting his skill and knowledge liter- 
ally on the desert air. While Mrs. Jakes, quite invol- 
untarily, recalled the flavor of the music-master of years 
ago, who played of nights a violin in the orchestra of 
the Putney Hippodrome and carried a Bohemian glam- 
our about him on his daily rounds, Margaret’s mind 
was astray in the paths of the Karoo where wandered 
under the stars, unaccountable and heartrending, a 
healer clothed with the flesh and skin of tragedy. She 
remembered him as she had seen him, below the dam 
wall, with Paul hanging on his words and the humble 
A32 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


clay gathering shape under his hands, lifting his blunt 
negro face to her and speaking in deliberate, schooled 
English of how it fared in Africa with a black man 
who was not a savage. He had thanked her then very 
movingly for merely hearing him and being touched 
by the pity and strangeness of his fate, and had prom- 
ised to come to her whenever she should signify a wish 
to speak with him again. The wish was not wanting, but 
the opportunity had failed, and since then the only 
token of him had been the scarlet aloe plumes, fruit of 
the desert gathered in loneliness, which he had con- 
veyed to her by the hands of Fat Mary. Like himself, 
they came to her unexpected and unexplained, and 
she had had them only long enough to know they 
existed. 

Her promise to Kamis to keep her acquaintance with 
him a secret had withheld her so far from sharing the 
matter with Ford, though she told herself more than 
once that in his particular case the promise could not ap- 
ply. With him she was sure there could be no risk; 
he would take his stand on the clear facts of the situa- 
tion and be free from the first from the silly violence 
of thought which complicates the racial question in 
South Africa. She had even pictured to herself his 
reception of the news, when he received it, say, across 
the top of his little easel; he would pause, the palette 
knife between his fingers, and frown consideringly at 
the sticky mess before him on the canvas. His lean, 
sober, courageous face would give no index to the direc- 
tion of his mind; he would put it to the test of his 
queer, sententious logic with all due deliberation, till at 
last he would look up decidedly and commit himself 
to the reasonable and human attitude of mind. “As 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


I see it,” he would probably begin; or 4 ‘Well, the posi- 
tion ’s pretty clear, I think. It ’s like this.” And 
then he would state the matter with all his harsh, youth- 
ful wisdom, tempered a little by natural kindliness and 
gentleness of heart. And all would be well, with a 
confidant gained into the bargain. But, nevertheless, 
he had not yet been told. 

Mrs. Jakes was perfunctory that evening with her 
good nights; with all her efforts to appear at ease the 
best she could do was to appear a little absent-minded. 
She gave Margaret her breakfast smile instead of her 
farewell one and stared at her curiously as she stood 
aside to let the girl pass up-stairs. She had the air of 
passing her in review. 

It seemed to Margaret that she had been asleep for 
many hours when she was awakened and found the 
night still dark about her. Some blurred fragments 
of a dream still clung to her and dulled her wits; she 
had watched again the passing before the stoep of Yan 
Zyl’s captives and seen their dragging feet lift the dust 
and the hopelessness of their white eyes. But with 
them, the mounted men seemed to ride to the accompan- 
iment of hoofs clattering as they do not clatter on the 
dry earth of the Karoo; they clicked insistently like a 
cab horse trotting smartly on wood pavement, and then, 
when that had barely headed off her thoughts and let 
her glimpse a far vista of long evening streets, popu- 
lous with traffic, she was awake and sitting up in her 
bed, and the noise was Mrs. Jakes standing in the half- 
open door and tapping on the panels to wake her. 
She carried a candle which showed her face in an un- 
steady, upward illumination and filled it unfamiliarly 
with shadows. 


134 


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‘ ‘ What is it?” called Margaret. ‘‘Come in, Mrs. 
Jakes. Is there anything wrong?” 

Mrs. Jakes entered and closed the door behind her. 
She was fully dressed still, even to the garnet brooch 
she wore of evenings, which she had once purchased 
from a countess at a bazaar. Stranger far, she wore an 
embarrassed, confidential little smile as though some 
one had turned a laugh against her. She came to Mar- 
garet’s bedside and stood there with her candle. 

“My dear,” she said; “I know it’s very awkward, 
but I feel I can trust you. We are friends, aren’t 
we?” 

“Yes,” said Margaret, staring at her. “But what 
is it?” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Jakes, very deliberately, and still 
with the same little smile, “it ’s an awkward thing, but 
I want you to help me. I don’t care to ask Mr. Samson 
or Mr. Ford, because they might not understand. So, 
as we ’re friends — ” 

“Is anybody dead?” demanded Margaret. 

Mrs. Jakes made a shocked face. “Dead. No. My 
dear, if that was it, you may be sure I should n’t trouble 
you. No, nobody ’s dead; it ’s nothing of that kind at 
all. I only just want a little help, and I thought — ” 

“You ’re making me nervous,” said Margaret. “I ’ll 
help if I can, but do say what it is.” 

Mrs. Jakes’ smile wavered; she did not find it easy to 
say what it was. She put her candle down upon a 
chair, to speak without the strain of light on her face. 

“It ’s the doctor,” she said. “He ’s had a — a fit, 
my dear. He thought a little fresh air would do him 
good and he went out. And the fact is, I can’t quite 
manage to get him in by myself.” 

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“Eh?” Margaret stared. “Where is he?” she asked. 

“He got as far as the road and then he fell,” said 
Mrs. Jakes. “I wouldn’t dream of troubling you, my 
dear, but I ’m — I ’m rather tired to-night and I really 
couldn’t manage by myself. And then I remembered 
we were friends.” 

“Not till then?” asked Margaret. “You don’t care 
to wake Mr. Ford? He wouldn’t misunderstand.” 

“Oh, no — please,” begged Mrs. Jakes, terrified. 
“No, please. I ’d rather manage alone, somehow — I 
would, really.” 

“You can’t do that,” said Margaret, decidedly. She 
sat a space of moments in thought. The doctor’s fit 
did not deceive her at all ; she knew that for one of the 
euphemisms that made Mrs. Jakes’ life livable to her. 
He was drunk and incapable upon the road before the 
house, and Mrs. Jakes, helpless and frightened, had 
waked her in the middle of the night to help bring the 
drunken man in and hide him. 

“I ’ll help you,” she said suddenly. “Don’t you 
worry any more, Mrs. Jakes; we ’ll manage it some- 
how. Let me get some things on and we ’ll go out.” 

“It ’s very kind of you, my dear,” said Mrs. Jakes 
humbly. “You ’ll put some warm things on, won’t 
you? The doctor would never forgive me if I let you 
catch cold.” 

Margaret was fumbling for her stockings. 

“I ’m not very strong, you know,” she suggested. 
“I ’ll do all I can, but had n ’t we better call Fat Mary ? 
She ’s strong enough for anything.” 

“Fat Mary! A Kafir!” Mrs. Jakes forgot her cau- 
tion and for the moment was shrill with protest. 
“Why — why, the doctor would never hold up his head 
136 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

again. It wouldn’t do at all ; I simply couldn’t think 
of it.” 

“Oh, well. As you like ; I did n’t know. Here ’s me, 
anyhow; and awfully willing to be useful.” 

But Mrs. Jakes had been startled in earnest. While 
Margaret completed a sketchy toilet she stood murmur- 
ing: “A Kafir! Why, the very idea — it would break 
the doctor’s heart.” 

With her dressing-gown held close about her, Mar- 
garet went down-stairs by the side of Mrs. Jakes and 
her candle, with the abrupt shadows prancing before 
them on wall and ceiling like derisive spectators of 
their enterprise. But there was no sense of adventure 
in it; somehow the matter had ranged itself prosaically 
and Mrs. Jakes, prim and controlled, managed to throw 
over it the commonplace hue of an undertaking which 
is adequately chaperoned. The big hall, solemn and re- 
served, had no significant emptiness, and from the study 
there was audible the ticking of some stolid little clock. 

The front door of the house was open, and a faint 
wind entered by it and made Margaret shiver ; it showed 
them a slice of night framed between its posts and two 
misty still stars like vacant eyes. 

“ It ’s not far, ’ ’ said Mrs. J akes, on the stoep, and 
then the faint wind rustled for a moment in the dead 
vines and the candle-flame swooped and went out. 

“You haven’t matches, my dear?” enquired Mrs. 
Jakes, patiently. “No? But we ’ll want a light. I 
could fetch a lantern if you wouldn’t mind waiting. 
I think I know where it is.” 

“All right,” agreed Margaret. “I don’t mind.” 

It was the first thrill of the business, to be left alone 
while Mrs. Jakes tracked that lantern to its hiding-place. 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Margaret slowly descended the steps from the stoep and 
sat down on the lowest of them to look at the night. 
There was a touch of chill in it, and she gathered her- 
self up closely, with her hands clasped around her knees. 
The wide sleeves of the dressing-gown fell back and 
left her arms bare to the elbow and the recurring wind, 
like a cold breath, touched her on the chest where the 
loose robe parted. The immensity of the night, veiling 
with emptiness unimaginable bare miles, awed her like 
a great presence; there was no illumination, or none 
but the faintest, making darkness only apparent, from 
the heavenful of pale blurred stars that hung over her. 
Behind her, the house with those it held was dumb; it 
was the Karoo that was vocal. As she sat, a score of 
voices pressed upon her ears. She heard chirpings and 
little furtive cries, the far hoot of some bold bird and by 
and by the heartbroken wailing of a jackal. She 
seemed to sit at the edge of a great arena of unguessed 
and unsuspected destinies, fighting their way to their 
fulfilment in the hours of darkness. And then sud- 
denly, she was aware of a noise recurring regularly, 
a civilized and familiar noise, the sound of footsteps, of 
somebody walking on the earth near at hand. 

She heard it before she recognized it for what it was, 
and she was not alarmed. The footsteps came close 
before she spoke. 

4 ‘Is anybody there, please?” she called. 

The answer came at once. “Yes,” it said. 

“Who is it?” she asked again, and in answer to her 
question, the night-walker loomed into her view and 
stood before her. 

She rose to her feet with a little breathless laugh, for 
she recognized him. 


138 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Oh, it’s you,” she exclaimed. “Mr. Kamis, isn’t 
it? But what are you doing here at this time of 
night?” 

It was not light enough to see his face; she had rec- 
ognized him by the figure and attitude; and she was 
glad. She was aware then that she rather dreaded 
the negro face of him. 

“What are you doing, rather?” he asked. “Does 
anybody know you ’re out here like this? Is it part of 
some silly treatment, or what?” 

“I ’m waiting for Mrs. Jakes,” said Margaret. 
“She ’s coming with a lantern in a minute or two and 
you ’ll have to go. It ’s all right, though ; I shan ’t take 
any harm.” 

“I hope not.” He was plainly dissatisfied, and it 
was very strange to catch the professional restraint in 
his voice. “Your being here — if I may ask — hasn’t 
got anything to do with a very drunk man lying in 
the road over there?” 

“You ’ve seen him, then?” asked Margaret. “It is 
just drunkenness, of course?” 

He nodded. “But why — ?” he began again. 

“That ’s Dr. Jakes,” explained Margaret. “And 
I ’m going to help Mrs. Jakes to fetch him in, quietly, 
so that nobody will know. So you see why you must 
keep very quiet and slip away before she sees you — don’t 
you?” 

There was a pause before he answered. 

“But, good Lord,” he burst out. “This is — this is 
damnable. You can’t have a hand in this kind of thing ; 
it ’s impossible. What on earth are these people think- 
ing of? You mustn’t let them drag you into beastli- 
ness of this kind.” 


139 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


‘ ‘ Wait,” said Margaret. “ Don’t be so furious. No- 
body is dragging me into anything, and I don’t think 
I ’m a very draggable person, anyhow. I ’d only to be 
a little shocked once or twice and I should never have 
heard of this. I ’m doing it because — well, because I 
want to be useful and Mrs. Jakes came to me and asked, 
‘Was I her friend?’ That isn’t very clear to you, per- 
haps, but there it is.” 

“Useful.” He repeated the word scornfully. “Use- 
ful — yes. But do you mean that this is the only use 
they can find for you?” 

“I ’m an invalid,” said Margaret placidly. “A 
crock, you know. I ’ve got to take what chances I can 
find of doing things. But it ’s no use explaining such 
a thing as this. If you ’re not going to understand 
and be sympathetic, don’t let ’s talk about it at all.” 

He did not at once reply. She stood on the last step 
but one and looked down towards him where he stood 
like a part of the night, and though she could see of him 
only the shape, she showed to him as a tall slenderness, 
with the faint luminosity of bare arms and face and 
neck. He seemed to be staring at her very intently. 

“Anyhow,” he said suddenly — “what is wanted prin- 
cipally is to bring him in. That is so, isn’t it? Well, 
I ’ll fetch him for you. Will you be satisfied with 
that?” 

“No, you mustn’t,” said Margaret. “Mrs. Jakes 
wouldn’t allow it. Never mind why. She simply 
would n’t.” 

“I know why,” he answered. “I ’ve come across all 
that before. But this Kafir has seen the state of that 
white man. That does n ’t make any difference ? No ? ’ ’ 

Margaret had shaken her head. “I ’m awfully 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

sorry/ ’ she said. “I feel like a brute — but if you bad 
seen her when I suggested getting help. It was the one 
thing that terrified her. You see, it ’s her I want to 
help, much more than Dr. Jakes, and she must have her 
way. So please don’t be hurt, will you?” 

He laughed a little. “Oh, that doesn’t hurt me,” 
he said. “If it were you, it would be different, but 
Mrs. Jakes can’t help it. However — do you know 
where this man keeps his drugs?” 

“In the study,” answered Margaret. “In there, on 
the left. But why?” 

“I ’m a doctor too; you’d forgotten that, hadn’t you? 
If I had two or three things I could mix something that 
would sober him in a couple of minutes.” 

“Really?” Margaret considered it for a minute, but 
even that would not do. She could not bring herself 
to brave Mrs. Jakes’ horror and sense of betrayal when 
she should see the deliverer who came out of the night. 
And, after all, it was she who had claimed Margaret’s 
help. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” she had asked, 
and the girl had answered “Yes.” It was not the part 
of a friend to press upon her a gift that tasted pun- 
gently of ruin and shame. 

“No,” said Margaret. “Don’t offer any more help, 
please. It hurts to keep on refusing it. But it isn’t 
what Mrs. Jakes woke me up to beg of me and it isn’t 
what I got up from bed to grant her. Can’t you see 
what I mean? I ’ve told you all about it, and I ’m 
trusting you to understand.” 

“I understand,” he answered. “But I hate to let 
you go down to that drunken beast. And suppose the 
pair of you can’t manage him — what will you do then? 
You ’ll have to get help somewhere, won’t you?” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I suppose so,” said Margaret. 

‘‘Well, get me,” he urged, and came a pace nearer, 
so that only the width of the two bottom steps sepa- 
rated them and she could feel his breath upon the hands 
that hung clasped before her. “Let me help, if you 
need it,” he begged. “I ’ll wait, out of sight. Mrs. 
Jakes shan’t guess I ’m there. But I won’t be far, and 
if you just call quietly, I ’ll hear. It — it would be kind 
of you — merciful to let me bear just a hand. And if 
you don’t call, I ’ll not show myself. There can’t be 
any harm in that.” 

“No,” agreed Margaret, uncertainly. “There can’t 
be any harm in that.” 

She saw that he moved abruptly, and had an im- 
pression that he made some gesture almost of glee. 
But he thanked her in quiet tones for her grace of 
consent. 

Mrs. J akes, returning, found Margaret as she had left 
her. She had in her hand one of those stable lanterns 
which consist of a glass funnel protected by a wire cage, 
and she spilled its light about her feet as she went and 
walked in a shifting ring of light through a darkness 
made more opaque by the contrast. There was visible 
of her chiefly her worn elastic-sided boots as she came 
down the steps with the lantern swinging in her hand; 
and the little feet in those uncomely coverings were 
somehow appealing and pathetic. 

“I found it in Fat Mary’s room,” she explained. 
“She nearly woke up when I was taking it.” 

Margaret wondered whether Kamis were near enough 
to hear and acute enough to picture the tiptoe search 
for the lantern by the bedside of snoring Kafirs, the 
breathless halts when one stirred, the determination 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


that carried the quest through, and the prosaic matter- 
of-factness of it all. 

They stumbled their way arm in arm across the spit 
of patched grass that stood between the house and the 
road, and the lantern diffused about them a yellow haze. 
Then their feet recognized soft loose dust and they were 
on the road and moving along it. 

“It is n’t far,” said Mrs. Jakes, in her flat quiet voice. 
“Be careful, my dear; there are sometimes snakes on 
the road at night.” 

Dr. Jakes was apparent first as an indeterminate bulk 
against the dust that spread before them under the lan- 
tern. Mrs. Jakes saw him first. 

“He hasn’t moved,” she remarked. “I was rather 
afraid he might have. These fits, you know — he ’s had 
them before.” 

She stood at his head, with the lantern held before 
her, like a sentinel at a lying-in-state, and the whole un- 
loveliness of his slumbers was disclosed. He sprawled 
upon the road in his formal black clothes, with one arm 
outstretched and his face upturned to the grave inno- 
cence of the night. It had not the cast of repose; he 
seemed to have carried his torments with him to his 
couch of dust and to brood upon them under his mask 
of sleep. What was ghastly was the eyelids which 
were not fully shut down, but left bare a thin line of 
white eyeball under each, and touched the broken coun- 
tenance with deathliness. His coat, crumpled about 
him and over him, gave an impression of a bloated and 
corpulent body, and he was stained from head to foot 
with dust. 

Mrs. Jakes surveyed him without emotion. 

“He ’s undone his collar, anyhow,” she remarked. 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Didn’t yon do it?” asked Margaret, seeing the 
white ends that rose on each side of his chin. 

“No; I forgot,” was the answer. “He can’t be very 
bad, since he did that.” 

Margaret detected the hand of Kamis in this precau- 
tion. She said nothing, but stooped with Mrs. Jakes 
to try to rouse the doctor. The sickening reek of the 
man’s breath affronted her as she bent over him. 

Mrs. Jakes shook him and called on him by name in 
a loud half-whisper, lowering her face close to his ear. 
She was persuasive, remonstrant; she had the manner 
of reasoning briskly with him and rousing him to better 
•ways. 

“Eustace, Eustace,” she called, hushing her tones 
as though the night and the desert were perilous with 
ears. “Come, Eustace; you can get up if you try. 
Make just one effort, now, and you ’ll be all right.” 

The gurgle of his breath was the only answer. 

“We ’ll have to lift him,” she said, staring across his 
body at Margaret. 

“All right,” agreed the girl. 

“Get hold of his right arm and I ’ll take his left,” 
directed Mrs. Jakes. “If we get him on his feet, per- 
haps he ’ll rouse. Are you ready?” 

Margaret closed her lips and put forth the strength 
that she had, and between them they dragged him to a 
sitting posture, with his head hanging back and his 
heels furrowed deep in the dust. 

“Now, if I can just get behind him,” panted Mrs. 
Jakes. “Don’t let go. That ’s it. Now! Could you 
just help to lift him straight up?” 

Margaret went quickly to her aid. It had become 
horrible. The gross' carcass in their hands was inert 
144 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


like a flabby corpse, and its mere weight overtaxed them. 
They wrestled with it sobbingly, to the noise of their 
harsh breath and the shuffle of their straining feet on 
the grit of the road. Suddenly Margaret ceased her 
laboring and the doctor collapsed once more upon the 
ground. 

4 ‘ Why did you do that ? ’ ’ cried Mrs. J akes. ‘ ‘ He was 
nearly up.” 

“It was my chest,” answered Margaret weakly. “It 
—it hurt.” 

There was a warm feeling in her throat and a taste in 
her mouth which she knew of old. She found her hand- 
kerchief and dabbed with it at her lips. The feeble 
light of the lantern showed her the result — the red 
spots on the white cambric. 

“It ’s just a strain,” said Mrs. Jakes, dully. 
“That ’s all. The doctor will see to it to-morrow. If 
you rest a moment, you ’ll be all right. ’ ’ She" hesitated, 
but her husband and her life’s credit lay upon the 
ground at her feet, and she could not weigh Margaret’s 
danger against those. “You wouldn’t leave me now, 
my dear?” she supplicated. 

“No,” said the girl, after a moment’s pause. “I 
won’t leave you.” 

“What ’s that?” cried Mrs. Jakes and put a quick 
frightened hand upon her arm. ‘ ‘ Listen ! Who is it ? ” 

Steps, undisguised and clear, passed from the grass 
to the stone steps of the house and ascended, crossed 
the stoep and were lost to hearing in the doorway. 

The two women waited, breathless. It sprang to Mar- 
garet ’s mind that the lantern must have shown her 
clearly to Kamis, where he waited in the darkness, and 
he must have seen the climax of her efforts and her 
i° 145 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


handkerchief at her lips, and gone forthwith to the 
study for the drugs which would put an end to the mat- 
ter. 

“Look,” whispered Mrs. Jakes. “Some one is strik- 
ing matches — in the study.” 

The window brightened and darkened again and then 
lit with a steady glow ; the invader had found a candle. 
Mrs. Jakes dropped Margaret’s arm. 

“I must see who it is,” she said. “Walking into peo- 
ple’s houses like this.” 

Margaret held her back; she was starting forthwith 
to bring the majesty of her presence to bear on the un- 
known and possibly dangerous intruder. Mrs. Jakes 
had a house as well as a husband and could die at need 
for either. 

“No, don’t go,” said Margaret. “I know who it is. 
It ’s all right, if only you won’t be — well, silly about 
it.” 

“Who is it, then?” demanded Mrs. Jakes. 

Margaret felt feeble and unequal to the position. Her 
chest was painful, she was cold, and now there was about 
to be a delicate affair with Mrs. Jakes. She could have 
laughed at the growing complexity of things, but had the 
wit not to. 

“It ’s a doctor, ’ ’ she said ; “ a real London doctor. He 
was passing when you left me to get the lantern, and I 
wouldn’t let him stay because I thought you ’d be an- 
noyed. He ’s gone into the house to — ” 

“Does he know?” whispered Mrs. Jakes, feverishly, 
thrusting close to her. “Does he know — about this?” 
Her downward-pointing finger indicated the slumbers 
of Dr. Jakes. “Say, can’t you — does he know?” 

“He ’d seen him,” said Margaret. “I expect he 
146 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


loosened the collar — yon know. He wanted to help but 
I wouldn’t let him.” 

“Is he a friend of yours?” asked Mrs. Jakes again, 
still in the same agitated whisper. 

“Yes,” answered Margaret. “He is. It ’s all right, 
really, if only you ’ll be sensible and not make a fuss. 
He ’ll help us and then he ’ll go away and he ’ll say 
nothing. You didn’t think I ’d do anything to hurt 
you, did you ? Are n ’t we friends ? ’ ’ 

Mrs. Jakes stood silent; she asked no questions as to 
how a London doctor, a friend of Margaret’s, chanced 
to be walking upon the Karoo at night. 

“Well,” she said at last, with a long sigh; “perhaps 
we might have needed some help, in any case. ’ ’ 

That was all she said, till the footsteps came again 
across the stoep and down the steps, more deliberately 
this time, as though something were being carried with 
precaution. Then they were noiseless for a minute or 
more on the grass, and at last the figure of Kamis came 
into the further edge of the lighted circle. 

“I had to do it,” he said, before either of them could 
speak, and showed the graduated glass in his hand. “I 
saw you with your handkerchief. ’ ’ 

Margaret, with an instinct of apprehension, looked at 
Mrs. Jakes. At the first dim view of him, she had roused 
herself from her dejection, and put on her prim, social 
face to meet the London doctor effectively. Her little 
meaningless smile was bent for him; she would make a 
blameless and uneventful drawing-room of the August 
night and guard it against unseemly dramatics. 

He turned from Margaret towards her and came fur- 
ther into the lamp-light, and she had a clear view of the 
black face and sorrowful, foolish negro features. She 
147 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

uttered a gasp that was like a low cry and stood aghast, 
staring. 

‘ ‘ Madam,’ ’ began Kamis. 

She shivered. ‘‘A Kafir/ ’ she said. “The doctor 
will never forgive us.” And then, wheeling upon Mar- 
garet, “And I ’ll never forgive you. You said we were 
friends — and this is what you do to me.” 

“Mrs. Jakes,” implored Margaret. “You must be 
sensible. It ’s all right, really. This gentleman — ” 

“This gentleman,” Mrs. Jakes uttered a passionate 
spurt of laughter. “Do you mean this nigger? Gen- 
tleman, you call it? A London doctor? A friend of 
yours? A friend. Ha, ha!” She spun round again 
towards Kamis, waiting with the glass in his hand, the 
liquid in which shone greenish to the lamp. “Voet- 
zaak!” she ordered, shrilly. “Hamba wena — ch’che. 
Skellum. Injah. Voetzaak!” 

Kamis stood his ground. He cast a look at Margaret, 
past Mrs. Jakes, and spoke to her. 

“Will she let me give him this?” he asked. “Tell 
her I am a doctor and this will bring him to very 
quickly. And then I ’ll go away at once and never say 
a word about it.” 

“Don’t you dare touch him,” menaced Mrs. Jakes. 
“A filthy Kafir — I should think so, indeed.” 

Kamis went on in the same steady tone. “If she 
won’t you must go in at once and send for another doc- 
tor to-morrow. This man ought to be reported.” 

“You dare,” cried Mrs. Jakes. “You ’d report him 
— a Kafir.” She edged closer to the prostrate body of 
Dr. J akes and stood beside it like a beast-mother at bay. 
“I ’ll have you locked up — walking into my husband’s 
study like that.” 


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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Mrs. Jakes.’ ’ Margaret tried once more. “Please 
listen. If you ’ll only let the doctor have this drink, 
he ’ll be able to walk. If you don’t, he ’ll have to stay 
here. I am your friend ; I got up when you came to me 
and I said I would n ’t leave you even when I hurt my 
chest. Doesn’t that prove that I am? I wouldn’t do 
you any harm or shame you before other people for any- 
thing. What will Dr. Jakes say if he finds out that you 
let me stay here pleading when I ought to be in bed? 
He ’s a doctor himself and he ’ll be awfully annoyed — 
after telling me I should get well, too. Are n ’t you go- 
ing to give him a chance — and me?” 

Mrs. Jakes merely glared stonily. 

“Come,” said Margaret. “Won’t you?” 

Kamis uttered a smothered exclamation. “I won’t 
wait,” he said. “I ’ll count ten, slowly. Then Miss 
Harding must go in and I go away.” 

“Oh, don’t begin that sort of thing,” cried Margaret. 
“Mrs. Jakes is going to be sensible. Aren’t you?” 

There was no reply, only the stony and hostile stare 
of the little woman facing them and the gray image 
of disgrace. 

“One,” counted Kamis clearly. “Two. Three.” 

He counted with the stolid regularity of a clock; he 
made as though to overturn the glass and waste its con- 
tents in the dust as soon as he should have reached ten. 
“Ten,” he uttered, but held it safely still. “Well?” 

Mrs. Jakes did not move for some moments. Then 
she sighed and, still without speaking, moved away from 
the slumbering doctor. She walked a dozen paces from 
the road and stood with her back to them. 

With quick skilful movements, Kamis lifted the un- 
conscious man’s head to the crook of his arm and the 
149 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


rim of the glass clicked on his teeth. Margaret walked 
after Mrs. Jakes. 

“Come,” she said gently. “I don’t misunderstand. 
You trusted me or you wouldn’t have waked me. Ev- 
erything will be all right soon and then you ’ll forgive 
me.” 

“I won’t — never.” 

Mrs. Jakes would not face her. She stood looking 
into the blackness, tense with enmity. 

“Well, I hope you will,” said Margaret. 

They heard grunts from the doctor and then quaver- 
ing speech and one rich oath, and a noise of spitting. 
The Kafir approached them noiselessly from behind 
and paused at Margaret’s side. 

“That ’s done the trick,” he said; “and he doesn’t 
even know who gave him the draft. You ’ll go in 
now ? ’ ’ 

“Yes,” said Margaret. “You have been good, 
though. ’ ’ 

Mrs. Jakes had returned to her husband; they were 
for the moment alone. 

“I didn’t mean to force your hand,” he whispered. 
“But I had to. A doctor has duties.” 

She gave him her hand. “There was something I 
wanted to tell you, but there ’s no time to explain now. 
Did you know you were wanted by the police?” 

“Bless you, yes.” He smiled with a white flash of 
teeth. “Were you going to warn me? How kind! 
And now, in you go, and good night.” 

Dr. Jakes was sitting up, spitting with vigor and 
astonishment. He had taken a heroic dose of hair-rais- 
ing restoratives on the head of a poisonous amount of 
150 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


whisky, and his palate was a moldering ruin. But the 
clearness of his faculties left nothing to be desired. 

“Who ’s that?” he demanded at sight of Margaret. 
“Miss Harding. How do you come to be out here at 
this time?” 

“You should time your fits more decently, doctor,” 
answered Margaret coolly. 

Mrs. Jakes hastened to explain more acceptably. “I 
was frightened, Eustace. You looked so bad — and these 
fits are terrible. So I asked Miss Harding if she 
wouldn’t come and help me.” 

“A patient,” said the doctor. He turned over and 
rose stiffly to his feet, dust-stained all over. He stood 
before her awkwardly. 

“I am unfortunate,” he said. “You are in my care 
and this is what happens. It is my misfortune — and 
my fault. You ’ll go back to bed now, Miss Harding, 
please.” 

“Sure there ’s nothing more you want?” inquired 
Margaret. 

“At once, please,” he repeated. “In the morning — 
but go at once now.” 

On the stoep she paused to listen to them following 
after her and heard a portion of Mrs. Jakes’ excuses to 
her husband. 

“You looked so dreadful, Eustace, and I was fright- 
ened. And then, you ’re so heavy, and I suppose I was 
tired, and to-night I couldn’t quite manage by myself, 
dear. ’ ’ 

Margaret passed in at the door in order to cough un- 
heard, that nothing might be added to the tale of Mrs. 
Jakes’ delinquencies. 


151 


CHAPTER IX 


A ND what have we here ? ’ 9 said the stranger loudly. 
“What have we here, now?” 

Paul, sitting cross-legged in his old place under the 
wall of the dam, with a piece of clay between his fingers, 
looked round with a start. The stranger had come up 
behind him, treading unheard in his burst and broken 
shoes upon the soft dust, and now stood leaning upon 
a stick and smiling down upon him with a kind of des- 
perate jauntiness. His attitude and manner, with their 
parody of urbane ease, had for the moment power to 
hide the miserable shabbiness of his clothes, which were 
not so much broken and worn as decayed; it was decay 
rather than hardship which marked the whole figure of 
the man. Only the face, clean-shaven save for a new 
crop of bristles, had some quality of mobility and tem- 
per, and the eyes with which he looked at Paul were 
wary and hard. 

“Oh, nothing,” said Paul, uneasily, covering his clay 
with one hand. “Who are you?” 

The stranger eyed him for some moments longer with 
the shrewdness of one accustomed to read his fortune 
in other men’s faces, and while he did so the smile 
remained fixed on his own as though he had forgotten 
to take it off. 

“Who am I!” he exclaimed. “My boy, it ’d take a 
long time to tell you. But there ’s one thing that per- 
haps you can see for yourself — I ’m a gentleman. ’ ’ 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Paul considered this information deliberately. 

“Are you?” he said. 

“I ’m dusty,” admitted the other; “dusty both in- 
side and out. And I ’m travelin’ on foot — without 
luggage. So much I admit; I ’ve met with misfor- 
tunes. But there ’s one thing the devil himself can’t 
take away from me, and that ’s the grand old name of 
gentleman. An’ now, my lad, to business; you live at 
that farm there?” 

“Yes,” replied Paul. This tramp had points at 
which he differed from other tramps, and Paul stared at 
him thoughtfully. 

“So far, so good,” said the stranger. “Question 
number two: does it run to a meal for a gentleman 
on his travels, an’ a bed of sorts? Answer me that. 
I don’t mean a meal with a shilling to pay at the end 
of it, because — to give it you straight — I ’m out of 
shillings for the present. Now, speak up.” 

“If you go up there, they ’ll give you something to 
eat, and you can sleep somewhere,” said Paul, a little 
puzzled by the unusual rhetoric. 

The stranger nodded approvingly. “It ’s all right, 
then?” he said. “Good — go up one. But say! Ain’t 
you going there yourself pretty soon ? ’ ’ 

“Presently,” said Paul. 

“Then, if it ’s all the same to you,” said the stranger, 
“I ’ll wait and go up with you. Nothing like being 
introduced by a member,” he added, as he lowered him- 
self stiffly to a seat among the rank grass under the 
wall. “Gives a feller standing, don’t it?” 

He took off his limp hat and let himself fall back 
against the slope of the wall, grunting with appreciation 
of the relief after a day’s tramp in the sun. His 
153 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


rather full body and thin legs, ending in a pair of 
ruinous shoes that let his toes be seen, lay along the 
grass like an obscene corpse, and above them his feeble, 
sophisticated face leered at Paul as though to invite 
him to become its confidant. 

“You go on with what you ’re doing,” urged the 
stranger. “Don’t let me hinder you. Makin’ marbles, 
were you — or what?” 

“No,” said Paul. He hesitated, for an idea had 
come to him while he watched the stranger. “But — 
but if you ’ll do something for me, I ’ll give you a 
shilling.” 

“Eh?” The other rolled a dull eye on him. “It 
is n ’t murder, is it ? I should want one-and-six for 
that. I never take less.” 

Paul flushed. “I don’t know what you mean,” he 
said. “I only want you to keep still like that while 
I — while I make a model of you. You said you had n’t 
got any shillings just now.” 

“Did I say that?” inquired the stranger. “Well, 
well! However, chuck us over your shilling and I ’ll 
see what I can do for you.” 

He made a show of biting the coin and subjecting 
it to other tests of its goodness while the boy looked on 
anxiously. Paul was relieved when at last he pocketed 
it and lay Jback again. 

“I ’ll get rid of it somehow,” he said. “It ’s very 
well made. And now, am I to look pleasant, or 
what ? ’ 9 

“Don’t look at all,” directed Paul. “Just be like 
— like you are. You can go to sleep if you like.” 

“I never sleep on an empty stomach,” replied the 
stranger, arranging himself in an attitude of comfort. 
154 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Is this all right for yon? Fire away, then, Mike 
Angelo. Can I talk while yon ’re at it?” 

“If you want to,” answered Paul. The clay which 
he had been shaping was another head, and now he 
kneaded it out of shape between his hands and rounded 
it rudely for a sketch of the face before him. The 
Kafir, Kamis, had bidden him refrain from his attempts 
to do mass and detail at once, to form the features and 
the expression together; but Paul knew he had little 
time before him and meant to make the most of it. 
The tramp had his hands joined behind his head and 
his eyes half-closed; he offered to the boy the spectacle 
of a man beaten to the very ground and content to take 
his ease there. 

“D’you do much of this kind of thing?” asked the 
tramp, when some silent minutes had passed. 

“Yes,” said Paul, “a lot.” 

“Nothing like it, is there?” asked the other. He 
spoke lazily, absorbed in his comfort. “We ’ve all got 
our game, every bally one of us. Mine was actin’.” 

“Acting?” Paul paused in his busy fingering to 
look up. “Were you an actor?” 

The actors he knew looked out of frames in his 
mother’s little parlor, intense, well-fed, with an in- 
human brilliance of attire. 

“Even me,” replied the tramp equably. He did not 
move from his posture nor uncover his drowsy eyes; 
the swollen lids, in which the veins stood out in purple, 
did not move, but his voice took a rounder and more 
conscious tone as he went on : “ And there was a time, 

my boy, when actin’ meant me and I meant actin’. 
In ’87, I was playing in ‘The Demon Doctor,’ and 
drawing my seven quid a week — you believe me. Talk 
155 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of art — why ! I ’ve had letters from Irving that ’d 
make you open your eyes.” 

‘‘I ’ve heard about Irving,” said Paul, glancing back 
and fore from his clay to the curiously pouched mouth 
of his recumbent model. 

“Fancy,” exclaimed the tramp softly. “But it was 
a great game, a great game. Sometimes, even now, I 
sort of miss it. And the funny thing is — it isn’t the 
grub and the girls and the cash in my breeches pocket 
that I miss so much. It ’s the bally work. It ’s the 
work, my boy.” He seemed to wonder torpidly at 
himself, and for some seconds he continued to repeat, 
as though in amazement: “It ’s the work.” He went 
on: “Seems as if once an actor, always an actor, 
don’t it? A feller ’s got talent in him and he ’s got 
to empty it out, or ache. Some sing, some write, some 
paint; you prod clay about; but I’m an actor. Time 
was, I could act a gas meter, if it was the part, and 
that ’s my trouble to this day.” 

He ceased; he had delivered himself without once 
looking up or reflecting the matter of his speech by 
a change of expression. For all the part his body or 
his features had in his words, it might have been a dead 
man speaking. Paul worked on steadily, giving Small 
thought to anything but the shape that came into being 
under his hands. His standard of experience was 
slight; he knew too little of men and their vicissitudes 
to picture to himself the processes by which the face 
he strove to reproduce sketchily could have been shaped 
to its cast of sorrowful pretense; he only felt, cloudily 
and without knowledge, that it signaled a strange and 
unlovely fate. 

His knack served him well on that evening, and be- 
156 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


sides, there was not an elusive remembrance of form 
to be courted, but the living original before him. The 
tramp seemed to sleep; and swiftly, with merciless as- 
surance, the salient thing about him came into existence 
between Paul’s hands. Long before the light failed or 
the gourd-drum at the farmhouse door commenced its 
rhythmic call, the thing was done — a mere sketch, with 
the thumb-prints not even smoothed away, but stamped 
none the less with the pitiless print of life. 

“Done it?” inquired the tramp, rousing as Paul un- 
crossed his legs and prepared to put the clay away. 
“Let ’s have a look?” 

“It wants to be made smooth,” explained Paul, as he 
passed it to him. “And it ’s soft, of course, so don’t 
squeeze it.” 

“I won’t squeeze it,” the tramp assured him and 
took it. He gazed at it doubtfully, letting it lie on 
his knee. “Oho!” he said. 

“It ’s only a quick thing,” said Paul. “There 
wasn’t time to do it properly.” 

“Wasn’t there?” said the tramp, without looking up. 
“ It ’s like me, is it ? Damn you, why don ’t you say 
it and have done with it?” 

“Why,” cried Paul bewildered, and coloring furi- 
ously. “What’s the matter? It is like you. I mod- 
eled it from you just now as you were lying there.” 

“An’ paid me a shilling for it.” The tramp thrust 
an impetuous hand into his pocket; possibly he was 
inspired to draw forth the coin and fling it in Paul’s 
face. If so, he decided against it ; he looked at the coin 
wryly and returned it to its place. 

“Well,” he said finally; “you ’ve got me nicely. 
The cue is to shy you and your bally model into the 
157 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


dam together — an’ what about my supper? Eh? Yes, 
you ’ve got me sweetly. Here, take the thing, or I 
might make up my mind to go hungry for the pleasure 
of squashing it flat on your ugly mug. ’ ’ 

“You don’t like it?” asked Paul, as he received the 
clay again from the tramp’s hands. He did not under- 
stand; for all he knew, there were men who surprised 
their mothers by being born with that strange stamp 
upon them. 

The tramp gave him a slow wrathful look. “The 
joke ’s on me,” he answered. “7 know. I look a 
drunk who ’s been out all night; I ’m not denying it. 
I ’ve got a face that ’ll get me blackballed for admission 
to hell. I know all that and you ’ve made a picture 
of it. But don’t rub it in.” 

Paul looked at the clay again, and although the man’s 
offense was dawning on his understanding, he smiled at 
the sight of a strong thing strongly done. 

1 ‘ 1 did n ’t mean any joke, ’ ’ he protested. 

“Let ’s call it a joke,” said the tramp. “Once when 
I was nearly dying of thirst up beyond Kimberly, a 
feller that I asked for water gave me a cup of paraffin. 
That was another joke. Tramps are fair game for you 
jokers, aren’t they? Well, if that meal you spoke 
about was n ’t a joke, too, let ’s be getting up to the 
house.” 

“All right,” said Paul. He hesitated a minute, for 
he hated to part with the thing he had made. “Oh, 
it can go,” he exclaimed, and threw the clay up over 
the wall. It fell into the dam above their heads with 
a splash. 

“I didn’t mean any joke, truly,” he assured the 
tramp. 


158 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


4 ‘ Don’t rub it in,” begged the other. “We don’t 
want to make a song about it. And anyhow, I want to 
try to forget it. So come on — do. ’ ’ 

They came together through the kraals and across the 
deserted yard to the house-door, the tramp looking about 
him at the apparatus of well-fed and well-roofed life 
with an expression of genial approval. Paul would have 
taken him round to the back-door, but he halted. 

“Not bad,” he commented. “Not bad at all, con- 
sidering. An’ this is the way in, I suppose.” 

“We ’d better go round,” suggested Paul, but the 
tramp turned on the doorstep and waved a nonchalant 
hand. 

“Oh, this ’ll do,” he said, and there was nothing for 
Paul to do but to follow him into the little passage. 

The door of the parlor stood open, and within was 
Mrs. du Preez, flicking a duster at the furniture in a 
desultory fashion. The tramp paused and looked at her 
appraisingly. 

“The lady of the house, no doubt,” he surmised, with 
his terrible showy smile, before she could speak. “It ’s 
the boy, madam; he wouldn’t take no for an answer. 
I had to come home to supper with him.” 

His greedy quick eyes were busy about the little room ; 
they seemed to read a price-ticket on each item of its 
poor pretentious furniture and assess the littleness of 
those signed and framed photographs which inhabited 
it like a company of ghosts. 

“Why,” he cried suddenly, and turned from his in- 
spection of these last to stare again at Mrs. du Preez. 

His plausible fluency had availed for the moment to 
hide the quality of his clothes and person, but now Mrs. 
du Preez had had time to perceive the defects of both. 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“What d’ you mean?” she demanded. “How d ’you 
get in here ? Who are you ? ’ ’ 

The tramp was still staring at her. “It ’s on the tip 
of my tongue, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ Give me a moment. 
Why” — with a joyous vociferation — “who ’d ha’ 
thought it? It ’s little Sinclair, as I ’m a sinnair — 
little Vivie Sinclair of the old brigade, stap my vitals if 
it ain’t.” 

“What?” 

The man filled the narrow door, and Paul had to 
stoop under his elbow to see his mother. She was lean- 
ing with both hands on the table, searching his face with 
eyes grown lively and apprehensive in a moment. The 
old name of her stage days had power to make this 
change in her. 

“Who is it?” she asked. 

“Think,” begged the tramp. “Try! No use? 
Well — ” he swept her a spacious bow, battered hat 
to heart, foot thrown back — “look on this picture” — 
he tapped his bosom — “and on that.” His big 
creased forefinger flung out towards the photograph 
which had the place of honor on the crowded mantel- 
shelf and dragged her gaze with it. 

“It ’s not — ” Mrs. du Preez glanced rapidly back and 
forth between the living original and the glazed, im- 
maculate counterfeit — “it isn’t — it can’t be — Bailey V* 

“It is; it can,” replied the tramp categorically, and 
Boy Bailey, in the too, too solid flesh advanced into the 
room. 

Mrs. du Preez had a moment of motionless amaze, and 
then with a flushed face came in a rush around the 
table to meet him. They clasped hands and both 
laughed. 


160 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Why,” cried Mrs. du Preez; “if this don’t — but 
Bailey! Where ever do you come from, an’ like this? 
Glad to see you? Yes, I am glad; you ’re the first 
of the old crowd that I ’ve seen since I — I married.” 

“Married, eh?” The tramp tempered an over-gal- 
lant and enterprising attitude. “Then I mustn’t — 
eh?” 

His face was bent towards hers and he still held her 
hands. 

“No; you mustn’t,” spoke Paul unexpectedly, from 
the doorway, where he was an absorbed witness of the 
scene. 

They both turned sharply; they had forgotten the 
boy. 

“Don’t be silly, Paul,” said his mother, rather 
sharply. “Mr. Bailey was only joking.” But she 
freed her hands none the less, while Mr. Bailey bent his 
wary gaze upon the boy. 

The interruption served to bring the conversation 
down to a less emotional plane, and Paul sat down on 
a chair just within the door to watch the unawaited 
results of promising a meal to a chance tramp. The 
effect on his mother was not the least remarkable con- 
sequence. The veld threw up a lamentable man at your 
feet; in charity and some bewilderment you took him 
home to feed him, and thereupon your mother, your 
weary, petulant, uncertain mother, took him to her arms 
and became, by that unsavory contact, pink and viva- 
cious. 

“There ’s more of you,” said Mrs. du Preez, making 
a fresh examination of her visitor. “You ’re fatter 
than what you were, Bailey, in those old days.” 

Boy Bailey nodded carelessly. “Yes, my figure ’s 

u 161 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


gone too,” he agreed; “gone with all the rest. 
Friends, position, reputation — all but my spirits and my 
talents. I know. Ah, but those were good times, 
w T ere n ’t they ? ’ 9 

“Too good to last,” sighed Mrs. du Preez. 

“They didn’t last for me,” said Boy Bailey. 
“When we broke down at Fereira — lemme see! That 
must be nearly twenty years ago, ain’t it? — I took my 
leave of Fortune. Never another glance did I get 
from her; not one bally squint. I did advance agent 
for a fortune-teller for a bit; I even came down to 
clerking in a store. I ’ve been most things a man can 
be in this country, except rich. And why is it ? 
What ’s stood in my way all along? What ’s been my 
handicap that holds me back and nobbles me every time 
I face the starter?” 

“Ah!” exclaimed Mrs. du Preez sympathetically. 

“I don’t need to tell you,” continued Boy Bailey, 
“you not being one of the herd, that it ’s temperament 
that has me all the time. I don’t boast of it, but you 
know how it is. You remember me when I had scope; 
you ’ve seen me at the game; you can judge for your- 
self. A man with temperament in this country has got 
as much chance as a snowflake in hell. Perhaps, 
though, you ’ve found that out for yourself before now. ’ ’ 

“Don’t I know it,” retorted Mrs. du Preez. “Bailey, 
if you ’ll believe me, I have n’t heard that word ‘temper- 
ament,’ since I saw you last. Talk of scope — why you 
can go to the winder there and see with your eyes all 
the scope I ’ve had since I married. It ’s T>een tough, 
Bailey; it ’s been downright tough.” 

“Still — ” began Mr. Bailey, but paused. “We must 
have another talk,” he substituted. “There ’s a lot to 
162 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


hear and to tell. Do you think you could manage to 
put me up for a day or two? I suppose your husband 
wouldn’t mind?” 

“Why should he?” demanded Mrs. du Preez. 
“You ’re the first in all these years. Still, it wouldn’t 
be a bad idea if you was to have a change of clothes 
before he sees you, Bailey. It isn’t me that minds, 
you know ; so far as that goes, you ’d be welcome in any- 
thing; but — ” 

Boy Bailey waved her excuses away. “I under- 
stand,” he said. “I understand. It ’s these preju- 
dices — have your own way.” 

The resources of Christian du Preez ’s wardrobe were 
narrow, and Christian’s wife was further hampered in 
the selection of clothes for her guest by a doubt 
whether, if she selected too generously, Christian might 
not insist on the guest stripping as soon as he set 
eyes on him. Her discretion revealed itself, when Mr. 
Bailey was dressed, in a certain sketchiness of his total 
effect, an indeterminate quality that was not lessened 
by the fact that all of the garments were too narrow 
and too long; and though no alteration of his original 
appearance could fail to improve it, there was no hid- 
ing his general character of slow decay. 

“It ’s hardly a disguise,” commented Boy Bailey, as 
he surveyed himself when the change was made. “Dis- 
guise is n ’t the word that covers it, and I ’m hanged if 
I know what word does. But these pants are chronic.” 

“You can roll ’em up another couple of inches,” sug- 
gested Mrs. du Preez. 

“It isn’t that,” complained Mr. Bailey. “If they 
want to cover my feet, they can. But I ’d need a 
waist like a wasp before the three top buttons would 
163 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


see reason. Damme, I feel as if I was going to break 
in halves. What ’s that dear boy of yours grinning 
at?” 

“I wasn’t grinning,” protested Paul. “I was only 
going to say that father ’s coming in now. ’ ’ 

The tramp and his mother exchanged a glance of 
which the meaning was hidden from him, the look of 
allies preparing for a crucial moment. Already they 
were leagued to defeat the husband. 

Christian du Preez came with heavy footsteps along 
the passage from the outer door, saw that there was a 
stranger in the parlor and paused. 

“Christian,” said Mrs. du Preez, with a false 
sprightliness. “Come in; here’s a — an old friend of 
mine come to see us.” 

“An old friend?” 

The Boer stared at the stranger standing with 
straddled legs before the fireplace, and recognized him 
forthwith. Without speaking, he made a quick com- 
parison of the bold photograph, whose fleshy perfection 
had so often invited him to take stock of his own im- 
perfections, and then met the living Boy Bailey’s rigid 
smile with a smile of his own that had the effect of 
tempering the other’s humor. 

“I see,” said the Boer. “What’s the name?” 
He came forward and read from the photograph where 
the bold showy signature sprawled across a corner. 
“ ‘Yours blithely, Boy Bailey,’ ” he read. “And you 
are Boy Bailey?” 

“You ’ve got it,” replied the photograph’s original. 
“Older, my dear sir, and it may be meatier; but the 
same man in the main, and happy to make the ac- 
quaintance of an old friend’s husband.” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


His impudence cost him an effort in face of the Boer’s 
stare of contemptuous amusement, a stare which com- 
prehended, item by item, each article of his grotesque 
attire and came to rest, without diminishing its in- 
tensity, upon the specious, unstable countenance. 

“ AUemaclitag >’ y was the Boer’s only reply, as he 
completed his survey. 

“I don’t think you saw Bailey, that time we were 
married, Christian,” said Mrs. du Preez. “But he 
was a dear old friend of mine.” 

Christian nodded. “You walked here?” he in- 
quired of the guest. On the Karoo, the decent man 
does not travel afoot, and none of the three others who 
were present missed the implication of the inquiry. 
Mrs. du Preez colored hotly; Boy Bailey introduced his 
celebrated wave of the hand. 

“I see you know what walking means,” he replied. 
“It ain’t a human occupation — is it now? What I say 
is — if man had been meant for a voet ganger (a 
walker) ” — he watched the effect of the Dutch word on 
the Boer — “he ’d have been made with four feet. Is n’t 
that right? You bet your shirt it is.” 

“My shirt.” Christian seemed puzzled for the mo- 
ment, though the phrase was one which his wife used. 
She watched him uneasily. “Oh, I see. Yes, you can 
keep that shirt you ’ve got on. I don ’t want it. ’ ’ 

Boy Bailey made him a bow. “Ah, thanks. A shirt 
more or less don’t matter, does it?” 

Christian turned to Paul. “You brought him in?” 

“Yes,” answered Paul. 

“Well, come and help me with the sacks. Your 
mother an’ her friend wants to talk, an’ we don’t want 
to listen to them talking.” 


165 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Boy Bailey watched them depart. 

‘‘What ’s he mean by that?” he asked of Mrs. du 
Preez. 

“Never mind what he means,” she answered. “He 
can’t have his own way in everything. Sit down an’ 
tell me about the others an’ what happened to them 
after I left. There was Kitty Cassel — what did she 
do? Go home?” 

Boy Bailey pursed his lips. “No,” he answered 
slowly. “She and I went down to Capetown together. 
She didn’t come to any good, Kitty didn’t. Ask me 
about some one else; I don’t want to offend your ears.” 

But Mrs. du Preez was in error in one particular: 
Christian had seen Boy Bailey “that time we were mar- 
ried,” and remembered him very clearly. Those were 
days when he, too, lived vividly and the petty incidents 
and personalities of the moment wrote themselves deep 
on his boyish mind. As he worked at the empty sacks, 
telling them over by the stencils upon them, while Paul 
waded among them to his knees and flung them towards 
him, he returned in the spirit to those poignant years 
when a thin girl walking across a little makeshift stage 
could shake him to his foundations. 

He remembered the little town to which the com- 
mando had returned to be paid off and disbanded, a 
single street straggling under a rampart of a gray- 
green mountain, with the crude beginnings of other 
streets budding from it on either side, and the big 
brown, native location like a tuberous root at its lower 
end. Along its length, beetle-browed shops, with 
shaded stoeps and hitching-rails for horses, showed in- 
terior recesses of shade and gave an illusion of dignified 
166 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


prosperous commerce, and at the edge of it all there was 
a string of still pools, linked by a dribble of water, 
which went by the name of a river and nurtured along 
its banks gums and willows, the only trees of greater 
stature than a mimosa-bush that Christian had ever 
seen. 

It was a small, stagnant veld dorp, in fact, one of 
hundreds that are littered over the face of the Colony, 
and have for their districts a more than metropolitan 
importance. Christian knew it as a focus of life, the 
center of incomprehensible issues and concerns and when 
his corps returned to it, flavored in its single street 
the pungencies of life about town. The little war in 
the neighborhood had drawn to it the usual riff-raff: 
of the country that follows on the heels of troops, 
wherever armed men are gathered together, predatory 
women too wise in their generation, a sample or two 
of the nearly extinct species of professional card- 
sharper, a host of the sons of Lazarus intent upon 
crumbs that should fall from the pay-table, and a fair 
collection of ordinary thieves. These gave the single 
street a vivacity beyond anything it had known, and 
the armed burgher, carrying his rifle slung on his back 
from mere habit, would be greeted by the name of 
“Piet” and invited to drink once for every ten steps he 
took upon it. 

Hither came Christian — twenty-two years of age, six- 
foot in his bare soles of slender thew and muscle, not 
yet bearded and hungry with many appetites after a 
campaign against Kafirs. The restless town was a bait 
for him. 

At that time, there was much in him of that solemn- 
eyed quality which came to be Paul’s. The steely 
167 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

women laughed harshly as he ‘ passed them b^, with all 
the sweetness of his youth in his still face, his lips parted, 
his look resting on them and beyond them to the virtues 
and the delicacy they had thrown off to walk the faster 
on their chosen road. His ears softened their 
laughter, his eyes redeemed their bitterness; everything 
was transfigured for him by the dynamic power of his 
mere innocence and his potent belief in his own in- 
feriority to the splendor of all that offered itself to 
his vision. He saw his comrades, fine shots and hard 
men on the trek, lapse into drunkenness and evil com- 
munications, and it was in no way incompatible with his 
own ascetic cleanliness of apprehension that he ex- 
cused them on the grounds of the hardships they had 
undergone. He could idealize even a sot puking in 
a gutter. 

It was here that he saw a stage-play for the first 
time in his life, sitting in a back-seat in the town hall 
among young shop-assistants and workmen, not a little 
distracted between the strange things upon the stage 
which he had paid to witness and the jocular detach- 
ment from them by the young men about him. The 
play at first was incomprehensible; the chambermaid 
and the footman, conversing explanatorily, with which 
it opened, were figures he was unable to recognize, and 
he could not share the impression that seemed to pre- 
vail among the characters in general that the fat, whitish 
heroine was beautiful. The villain, too, was murder- 
ous in such a crude fashion; not once did he make a 
clean job of an assassination. Christian felt himself 
competent to criticize, since it was only a week or so 
since he had pulled a trigger and risen on his elbow 
to see his man halt in mid-stride and pitch face for- 
168 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


ward to the earth. He was confirmed in his dissatis- 
faction by the demeanor of his neighbors; they, men 
about town, broken to the drama and its surprises, were 
certainly not taking the thing seriously. After a while, 
therefore, he made no effort to keep sight of the thread 
of the play; he sat in an idle content, watching the 
women on the stage, curious to discover what it was in 
each one of them that was wrong and vaguely repel- 
lent. 

His neighbors had no doubts about it. “There ’s not 
a leg in the whole caboodle,” one remarked. “It ’s all 
mouth and murder, this is.” 

Christian did not clearly understand the first phrase, 
but the second was plain and he smiled in agreement. 
He looked up to take stock of another character, a girl 
who made her entrance at that moment, and ceased to 
smile. Her share in the scene was unimportant enough, 
and she had but a few words to speak and nothing to do 
but to walk forward and back again. She was thin 
and girlish and carried herself well, moving with a 
graceful deliberation and speaking in an appealing little 
tinkle to which the room lent a certain ring and reso- 
nance; she accosted the villain who replied with bru- 
tality; she smiled and turned from him, made a face 
and passed out again. And that was all. 

The young man who had deplored the absence of legs 
nudged his neighbor to look at the tall young Boer and 
made a joke in a cautious whisper. His precaution 
was unnecessary; he might have shouted and Christian 
would not have heard. He was like a man stunned by 
a great revelation, sitting bolt upright and staring at 
the stage and its lighted activity with eyes dazzled by 
a discovery. For the first time in his life he had seen 
169 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


a woman, little enough to break like a stick across his 
knee, brave and gay at once, delicate and tender, 
touching him with the sense of her strength and courage 
while her femininity made all the male in him surge 
into power. Gone was his late attitude of humorous 
judgment, that could detach the actress from her work 
and assess her like a cow ; the smile, the little contemptu- 
ous grimace had blown it all away. He was aghast, inca- 
pable of reducing his impression to thoughts. For a 
while, it did not occur to him that it would be possible 
to see her again. When it did, he leaned across the 
two playgoers who were next to him and lifted a pro- 
gram from the lap of the third, who gaped at him but 
found nothing to say. 

“That meisjie, the one in a red dress — is her name 
in this?” he inquired of his neighbor, and surprised 
him into assistance. Together they found it; the un- 
known was Miss Yivie Sinclair. 

“Skinny, wasn’t she?” commented the helpful 
neighbor sociably. 

But Christian was already on his feet and making 
his way out, and the conversational one got nothing 
but a slow glare for an answer across intervening 
heads. 

And yet the truth of it was, a connoisseur in girls 
could have matched Miss Yivie Sinclair a hundred 
times over, so little was there in her that was peculiar 
or rare. The connoisseur would have put her down 
without hesitation for a product of that busy manufac- 
tory which melts down the material of so many good 
housemaids to make it into so many bad actresses. Her 
sex and a grimace — these were the total of her assets, 
and yet she was as good a peg as another for a cloudy 
170 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


youth to drape with the splendors of his inexperienced 
fancy and glorify with the hues of his secret longings. 
Probably she had no very clear idea of herself in those 
days ; she was neither happy nor sad, as a general thing ; 
and her aspirations aimed much more definitely at 
the symptoms of success — frocks, bills lettered large 
with her name, comely young men in hot pursuit of her, 
gifts of jewelry — than at success itself. As she passed 
down the main street next morning, on her way to 
the telegraph office in the town hall, she offered to 
the slow, appraising looks from the stoeps a sketchy im- 
pression of a rather strained modernity, an effect of 
deftly managed skirts and unabashed ankles which in 
themselves were sufficient to set Fereira thinking. It 
was as she emerged from the telegraph office that she 
came face to face with Christian. 

“Well, where d’you think you ’re cornin’ to?” 

This was her greeting as he pulled up all standing to 
avert a collision. Clothes to fit both his stature and 
his esthetic sense had not been procurable, and he had 
been only able to wash himself to a state of levitical 
cleanliness. But his youthful bigness and his obvious 
reverence of her served his purpose. She stood looking 
at him with a smile. 

“I saw you,” he said, “in the play.” 

‘ 4 Did you ? What d ’ you think of it ? ” 

“ Allemachtag,” he answered. “I have been think- 
ing of it all night.” 

To his eye, she was all she had promised to be. The 
fragility of her was most wonderful to him, accus- 
tomed to the honest motherly brawn of the girls of his 
own race. The rather aggressive perkiness of her ad- 
dress was the smiling courage that had thrilled and 
171 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

touched him. He stood staring, unable to carry the 
talk further. 

But it was for this kind of thing that Miss Vivie 
Sinclair had “gone on the stage,” and she was not at 
all at a loss. 

“I ’m going this way,” she said, and in her hands, 
Christian was wax — willing wax. He found himself 
walking at her side under the eyes of the town. She 
waited before she spoke again till they were by the 
stoep of Pagan’s store, where a dozen loungers became 
rigid and watchful as they passed. 

“You’ve heard about the smash-up?” she inquired 
then. 

4 ‘ Smash-up ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Our smash-up ? Oh, a regular mess we ’re in, the 
whole lot of us. You had n ’t heard ? ’ ’ 

“No,” he answered. 

“Padden ’s cleared out. He was our manager, you 
know, and now he ’s run away with the treasury and 
left us high and dry. Went last night, it seems, after 
the show.” 

“Left you?” repeated Christian. The old story was 
a new one to him and he did not understand. Miss 
Sinclair thought him dense, but proceeded to enlighten 
him in words of one syllable, as it were. 

“That ’s why I was telegraphing,” she concluded. 
“There was a feller in Capetown I used to know, I 
want to strike him for my fare out of this.” 

So she was in trouble; there was a call upon her 
courage, an attack on her defenselessness. Miss Sin- 
clair, glancing sidelong at his face, saw it redden quickly 
and was confirmed in her hope that the “feller” in 
Capetown was but an alternative string to her bow. 

172 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“That telegram took all I ’d got but a couple of shill- 
ings/’ she added. “Padden had been keeping us short 
for a long time.” 

The long street straggled under the sun, bare to its 
harsh illumination, a wide tract of parched dust hemmed 
between walls and roofs of gray corrugated iron. The 
one thing that survived that merciless ordeal of light 
without loss or depreciation was the girl. They halted 
at the door of the one-storied hotel where her room 
was and here again the shaded stoep was full of ears 
and eyes and Christian had to struggle with words to 
make his meaning clear to her and keep it obscure to 
every one else. 

“It ’ll be all right,” he assured her stammeringly. 
“I ’ll see that it ’s all right. I ’ll come here an’ see 
you.” 

“When?” she asked, and helped him with a sugges- 
tion. “This evening? There ’ll be no show to-night.” 

‘ ‘ This evening, ’ ’ he agreed. 

Miss Sinclair gave him her best smile, all the better 
for the mirth that helped it out. She was as much 
amused as she was relieved. As she passed the bar on 
her way indoors, she winked guardedly to a florid youth 
within who stood in an attitude of listening. 

If Christian had celebrated the occasion with liba- 
tions in the local fashion, if he had talked about it 
and put his achievement to the test of words — if, even, 
he had been capable of thinking about it in any clear 
and sober manner instead of merely relishing it with 
every fiber of his body — the evening’s interview might 
have resolved itself into an act of charity, involving 
the sacrifice of nothing more than a few sovereigns. 
As it was, he spent the day in germinating hopes and 
173 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


educating his mind to entertain them. Under the stim- 
ulating heat of his sanguine youth, they burgeoned 
superbly. 

As he walked away from the hotel, the florid youth 
spoke confidentially to the fat shirt-sleeved barman. 

“Hear that?” he asked. “She ’ll do all right, she 
will. That ’s where a girl ’s better off than a man. 
Who ’s the feller, d’you know?” 

The barman heaved himself up to look through the 
window, and laughed wheezily. He was a married man 
and adored his children, but it was his business to be 
knowing and worldly. 

“It ’s young Du Preez,” he answered, as Christian 
stalked away. “One of them Boers, y’know. Got a 
farm out on the Karoo.” 

“Rich?” queried the other. 

“Not bad,” said the barman. “Most of those Dutch 
could buy you an’ me an’ use us for mantel ornaments, 
if they had the good taste. ’ ’ 

“So — ho,” exclaimed the florid youth. “But they 
don’t carry it about with ’em, worse luck.” 

He sighed and grew thoughtful. He was thoughtful 
at intervals for the rest of the morning, and by the 
afternoon was melancholy and uncertain of step. But 
he was on hand and watchful when Christian arrived. 

Christian was vaguely annoyed when a young man of 
suave countenance and an expression of deep solemnity 
thrust up to him at the hotel door and stood swaying and 
swallowing and making signs as though to command his 
attention. 

“What d’you want?” he demanded. 

“Word with you,” requested the other. “Word 
with you.” 


174 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


He was sufficiently unlike anything that was native 
to Fereira to be recognizable as an actor and Christian 
suffered himself to be beckoned into the bar. 

“ Shall I do it or you?” asked the other. “I shtood 
so many to-day, sheems to me it ’s your turn. Mine ’s 
a whisky. Now, ’bout this li’l girl upshtairs.” 

“Eh?” Christian was startled. 

“ I ’m man of the world, ’ ’ the other went on, with the 
seriousness of the thoroughly drunken. “Know more 
’bout the world then ever you knew in yer bally life. 
An’ I don’t blame you — norra bit. Now what I want 
shay is this: I can fix it for you if you ’re good for 
a fiver. Jush a fiver — shave trouble and time, eh? 
Nice li’l girl, too. Worth it.” 

Christian watched him lift his glass and drink. He 
was perplexed; these folk seemed to have a language of 
their own and to be incomprehensible to ordinary folk. 

“Worth it?” he repeated. “Fix what?” he de- 
manded. 

“Nod ’s good ’s wink,” answered the other. “Don’t 
want to shout it. Bend your long ear down to me — tell 
you.” 

They had a corner by the bar to themselves. Near 
the window the barman had a customer after his own 
heart and was repeating to him an oracular saying by 
his youngest daughter but two, glancing sideways while 
he spoke to see if Christian and the other were listen- 
ing. 

Christian bent, and the hot breath of the other, reek- 
ing of the day’s drinking, beat on his neck and the side 
of his head. The hoarse whisper, with its infernal sug- 
gestion, seemed to come warm from a pit of vileness 
within the man’s body. 


175 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Is that plain ’nough?” 

Christian stood upright again, trembling from head 
to foot with some cold emotion far transcending any 
rage he had ever felt. For some instant he could not 
lift his hand; he had seen the last foul depths of evil 
and was paralyzed. The other lifted his glass again. 
His movement released the Boer from the spell. 

He took the man by the wrist that held the glass with 
so deadly a deliberation that the barman missed his hos- 
tile purpose and continued to talk, leaning with his fat, 
mottled arms folded on the bar. 

4 ‘What you doin’, y’ fool?” The cry was from the 
florid youth. 

“Ah!” Christian put out his strength with a maniac 
fury, and the youth’s hand and the glass in it were 
dashed back into that person’s face. No hand but his 
own struck him, and the countenance Christian saw as 
a blurred white disk broke under the blow and showed 
red cracks. He struck again and again; the barman 
shouted and men came running in from outside. Chris- 
tian dropped the wrist he held and turned away. Those 
in the doorway gave him passage. On the floor in the 
comer the florid youth bled and vomited. 

Christian knew him later as a bold and serene face 
in a plush photograph frame, signed across the lower 
right corner: “Yours blithely, Boy Bailey.” 

How he made inquiries for the girl’s room and came 
at last to the door of it was never a clear memory to 
him. But he could always recall that small austere in- 
terior of whitewash and heat-warped furniture to which 
he entered at her call, to find her sitting on the narrow 
bed. He came to her bereft of the few faculties she 
had left him, grave, almost stern, gripping himself by 
176 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


force of instinct to save himself from the outburst of 
emotion to which the scene in the bar had made him 
prone. Everything tender and protective in his nature 
was awake and crying out; he saw her as the victim of 
a sacrilegious outrage, threatened by unnamable dan- 
gers. 

She looked at him under the lids of her eyes, quickly 
alive to the change in him. It is necessary to record 
that she, too, had made inquiries since the morning, and 
learned of the farm that stood at his back to guarantee 
him solid. 

“I wondered if you ’d come, ,, she said. “That feller 
in Capetown hasn’t answered.” 

“I said I ’d come,” he replied gravely. 

“Yes, I know. All the same, I thought — you know, 
when a person ’s in hard luck, nothing goes right, an’ 
a girl, when she ’s in a mess, is anybody ’s fool. Is n ’t 
that right?” 

She knew her peril then; she lived open-eyed in face 
of it. 

“You shall not be anybody’s fool,” he answered. “If 
anybody tries to be bad to you, I ’ll kill him.” 

He was still standing just within the closed door, no 
nearer to her than the size of the little chamber com- 
pelled. 

“Won’t you sit down?” she invited. 

“Eh?” His contemplation of her seemed to absorb 
him and make him absent-minded. “No,” he replied, 
when she repeated her invitation. 

“As you like,” she conceded, wondering whether after 
all he was going to be amenable to the treatment she pro- 
posed for him. It crossed her mind that he was think- 
ing of getting something for his money and her silly 
12 177 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


mouth tightened. If her sex was one of her assets, her 
virtue — the fanatic virtue which is a matter of prejudice 
rather than of principle, — was one of her liabilities. 
She had nothing to sell him. 

“You know,” she said, “the worst of it is, none of us 
haven’t had any salary for weeks. That ’s what puts 
us in the cart. We ’re all broke. If Padden had let 
us have a bit, we would n ’t be stranded like this. And 
the queer thing is, Gus Padden ’s the last man you ’d 
have picked for a wrong ’un. Fat, you know, and beam- 
ing ; a sort of fatherly way, he had. He used to remind 
me of Santa Claus. An’ now he ’s thrown us down 
this way, and how I ’m going to get up again I can’t 
say. ’ ’ She gave him one of her shrewd upward glances ; 
tell me, ’ ’ she added. 

“I can tell you,” he replied. 

“How, then?” she asked. 

“Marry me,” said Christian. “This acting — it ’s no 
good. There ’s men that is bad all around you. One 
of them — I broke his face like a window-glass down- 
stairs just now — he said you was — bad, like him. And 
it was time to see what he was worth. “Unless you can 
you are ach — so — so little, so weak. Marry me, my 
kleintje and you shall be nobody’s fool.” 

The girl on the bed stared at him dumbly: this was 
what she had never expected. Salvation had come to 
her with both hands full of gifts. She began to laugh 
foolishly. 

“Marry me,” repeated Christian. “Will you?” 

She jumped up from her seat, still laughing and took 
two steps to him. 

“Will I?” she cried. “Will a duck swim? Yes, I 
will; yes, yes, yes!” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Christian looked at her dazed; events were sweeping 
him off his feet. He took one of her hands and dropped 
it again and turned from her abruptly. With his arm 
before his face he leaned against the door and burst 
into weeping. The girl patted him on the back sooth- 
ingly. 

“Take it easy,” she said kindly. “You ’ll be all 
right, never fear.” 

“That’s all the Port Elizabeth ones,” said Paul. 
‘ 1 How many do you make them ? ’ ’ 

Christian du Preez looked up uncertainly. “Alle- 
machtag,” he said. “I forgot to count. I was think- 
ing.” 

“Oh. About the tramp?” 

“Yes. Paul, what did you bring him in for? 
Could n’t you see he was a skellumV 9 

Paul nodded. “Yes, I could see that. But — skel- 
lums are hungry and tired, too, sometimes.” 

His father smiled in a worried manner. He and Paul 
never talked intimately with each other, but an intimacy 
existed of feeling and thought. They took many of the 
same things for granted. 

“Like us,” he agreed. “Come on to supper, Paul.” 


179 


CHAPTER X 


I T was nearing the lunch hour when Margaret 
walked down from the Sanatorium to the farm, 
leaving Ford and Mr. Samson to their unsociable pre- 
occupations on the stoep, and found Paul among the 
kraals. He had some small matter of work in hand, 
involving a wagon-chain and a number of yokes; these 
were littered about his feet in a liberal disorder and 
he was standing among them contemplating them ear- 
nestly and seemingly lost in meditation. He turned 
slowly as Margaret called his name, and woke to the 
presence of his visitor with a lightening of his whole 
countenance. 

“Were you dreaming about models ?” inquired Mar- 
garet. “You were very deep in something/ ’ 

Paul shook his head. * ‘ It was about wagons, ’ ’ he an- 
swered seriously. “I was just thinking how they are 
always going away from places and coming to more 
places. That ’s all.” 

“Wishing you had wheels instead of feet? I 
see,” smiled the girl. “What a traveler you are, 
Paul. ’ ’ 

He smiled back. In their casual meetings they had 
talked of this before and Paul had found it possible to 
tell her of his dreams and yearnings for what lay at 
the other end of the railway and beyond the sun mist 
that stood like a visible frontier about his world. 

“I shall travel some day,” he answered. “Kami a 
180 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


says that a man is different from a vegetable because 
he has n ’t got roots. He says that the best way to see 
the world is to go on foot.” 

“I expect he ’s right,” said Margaret. “It ’s jolly 
for you, Paul, having him to talk to. Do you know 
where he is now ? ’ ’ 

“Yes,” answered the boy. 

“Well, then, when can I see him? He told me you 
could always let him know. ’ ’ 

“This afternoon?” suggested Paul. “If you could 
come down to the dam wall then, he can be there. 
There is a signal I make for him in my window and he 
always sees it. ’ ’ 

“I ’ll come then,” promised Margaret. “Thank you, 
Paul. But that signal — that ’s rather an idea. Did 
you think of it or did he?” 

“He did,” answered Paul. “He said it wouldn’t 
trouble him to look every day at a house that held a 
friend. And he does, every day. There was only once 
he did n ’t come, and then he had twisted his ankle a 
long way off on the veld, walking among ant-bear holes 
in the dark.” 

“Which window is it?” asked Margaret. 

Paul pointed. “That end one,” he showed her. 

Margaret looked, and a figure lounging against one 
of the doorposts of the house took her look for himself 
and bowed. 

“That ’s nobody,” said Paul quickly. “Don’t look 
that way. It ’s — it ’s a tramp that came to me — and I 
gave him a shilling to keep still and be modeled — and 
he knows my mother — and he ’s staying in the house. 
He ’s beastly; don’t look that way.” 

His solicitude and his jealousy made Margaret smile. 

181 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I shouldn’t see him if I did,” she said. “ Don’t 
you worry, Paul. Then — this afternoon ? ’ ’ 

“ Under the dam,” replied Paul. i 1 Good-by. He ’s 
waiting for a chance to come and speak to you.” 

“Let him wait,” replied Margaret, and turned home- 
wards, scrupulously averting her face from the ingrati- 
ating figure of Boy Bailey. 

That pensioner of fortune watched her pass along 
the trodden path to the Sanatorium till she was clear 
of the farm, and then put himself into easy movement 
to go across to Paul. The uncanny combination of 
Christian’s clothes and his own personality drifted 
through the arrogant sunlight and over the sober earth, 
a monstrous affront to the temperate eye. He was like 
a dangerous clown or a comical Mephistopheles. Paul, 
pondering as he came, thought of a pig equipped with 
the venom of the puff-adder of the Karoo. As he drew 
near, the boy fell to work on the chain and yokes. 

“Well, my dear boy.” The man’s shadow and his 
voice reached Paul together. He did not look up, but 
went on loosening the cross bar of a yoke from its 
link. 

“There ’s more in this place of yours than meets the 
eye at a first glance,” said Boy Bailey. “You ’re well 
off, my lad. Not only milk and honey for the trouble 
of lifting ’em to your mouth, but dalliance, silken dalli- 
ance in broad daylight. What would your dear mother 
say if she knew?”. 

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “Ask her?” 

“And spoil sport? Laddie, you ’ll know me better 
some day. Not for worlds would I give a chap’s game 
away. It ’s not my style. Poor I may be, but not that. 
No. I admire your taste, my boy. You ’ve an eye in 
182 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


your head. But you forgot to introduce the lady to your 
mother’s old friend. However, you ’ll be seeing her 
again, no doubt, an’ then — ” 

“I didn’t forget,” said Paul. Still he did not look 
up. The iron links shook in his hands, and he detached 
the stout crosspiece and laid it across his knees. 

“Eh?” Boy Bailey’s face darkened a little, and his 
wary eyes narrowed. He looked down on the boy’s 
bent back unpleasantly. 

“You didn’t?” he said. “I see. Well, well. A 
chap that ’s poor must put up with these slights.” His 
slightly hoarse voice became bland again. “But have 
it your own way; Heaven knows, 1 don’t mind. She ’s 
a saucy little piece, all the same, an’ p’r’aps you ’re 
right not to risk her with me. If I got her by herself, 
there ’s no saying — ” 

He stopped; the boy had looked up and was rising. 
His face stirred memories in Boy Bailey; it roused 
images that were fogged by years, but terrible yet. In 
the instant’s grace that was accorded him, he felt his 
wrist gripped once more and saw the livid clenched 
face, tense with the spirit of murder, that burned above 
his ere his own hand and the glass it held were dashed 
athwart his eyes. The boy was rising and he held the 
cross-bar of the yoke like a weapon. 

Boy Bailey made to speak but failed. With a sort of 
squeak he turned and set off running towards the house, 
pounding in panic over the ground with his grotesque 
clothes flapping about him like abortive wings. Paul, 
on his feet amid the tangled chains, watched him with 
the heavy cross-bar in his hand. 

If he had any clear feeling at all, it was disappoint- 
ment at the waste of a rare energy. He could have 
183 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


killed the man in the heat of it, and now it was wasted. 
Boy Bailey was whole, his pulpy face not beaten in, his 
bones functioning adequately as he ran instead of creak- 
ing in fractures to each squirm of his broken body. It 
was an occasion squandered, lost, thrown away. It had 
the unsatisfying quality of mere prevention when it 
might have been a complete cure. 

Margaret returned to the Sanatorium in time to meet 
Mrs. Jakes in the hall as she led the way to lunch and to 
receive the unsmiling movement of recognition which 
had been her lot ever since the night of Dr. Jakes’ ad- 
venture. Contrary to Margaret’s expectation, Mrs. 
Jakes had not come round; no treatment availed to con- 
vince her that she had not been made a victim of black 
treachery and the doctor wantonly exposed and humil- 
iated. When she was cornered and had to listen to ex- 
planations, she heard them with her eyes on the ground 
and her face composed to an irreconcilable woodenness. 
When Margaret had done — she tried the line of humor- 
ous breeziness, and it was a mistake — Mrs. Jakes 
sniffed. 

“If you please,” she said frigidly, “we won’t talk 
about it. The subject is very painful. No doubt all 
you say is very true, but I have my feelings.” 

“So have I,” said Margaret. “And mine are being 
hurt. ’ ’ 

“lam extremely sorry, ’ ’ replied the little wan woman, 
with stiff dignity. * ‘ If you wish it, I will ask the doctor 
to recommend you a Sanatorium elsewhere, where you 
may be more comfortable.” 

“You know that isn’t what I want,” protested Mar- 
garet. “This is all very silly. I only want you to un- 
derstand that I have n ’t done you any harm and that I 
184 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


did the best I could and let ’s stop acting as if one of 
us had copied the other’s last hat.” 

4 ‘No doubt I am slow of understanding, Miss Hard- 
ing,” retorted Mrs. Jakes formidably. “However — 
if you have quite finished, I ’m in rather a hurry and I 
won ’t detain you. ’ ’ 

And she made her escape in good order, marching un- 
hurried down the matted corridor and showing to Mar- 
garet a retreating view of a rigid black alpaca back. 

Dr. Jakes was equally effective in his treatment of 
the incident. He went to work upon her lungs quite 
frankly, sending her to bed for a couple of days and 
gathering all his powers to undo the harm of which he 
had been the cause. On the third day, there was a fur- 
ther interview in the study, a businesslike affair, 
conducted without unnecessary conversation, with 
monosyllabic question and reply framed on the most 
formal models. At the close of it, he leaned back in his 
chair and faced her across the corner of his desk. He 
was irresistibly plump and crumpled in that attitude, 
with his sad, uncertain eyes expressing an infinite ap- 
prehension and all the resignation of a man who has 
lost faith in mercy. 

“That is all, then, Miss Harding. Unless — ?” 

The last word was breathed hoarsely. Margaret 
waited. He gazed at her owlishly, one nervous hand 
fumbling on the blotting-pad before him. 

“There is nothing else you want to say to me?” he 
asked. 

“I can’t think of anything,” said Margaret. 

He continued to look at her, torpidly, helplessly. It 
was impossible to divine what fervencies of inarticulate 
emotion burned and quickened behind his mask of im- 
185 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


mobile flesh. The rumpled hair, short and blond, lay- 
in disorder upon his forehead and his lips were parted 
impotently. He had to blink and. swallow before he 
could speak again, visibly recalling his wits. 

“If you don’t tell me, I can’t answer,” he said, and 
sighed heavily. He raised himself in his big chair ir- 
ritably. 

“Nothing more, then?” he asked. “Well — take care 
of yourself, Miss Harding. That ’s all you have to do. 
Whatever happens, your business is to take care of your- 
self ; it ’s what you came here for.” 

“I will,” answered Margaret. She wished she could 
find a plane on which it would be possible to talk to 
him frankly, without evasions and free from the as- 
sumptions which his wife wove about him. But the res- 
ignation of his eyes, the readiness they expressed to ac- 
cept blows and penalties, left her powerless. The gulf 
that separated them could not be bridged. 

“Then — ” he rose, and in another pair of moments 
Margaret was outside the study door in the hall, where 
Mrs. Jakes, affecting to be concerned in the arrange- 
ment of the furniture, examined her in sidelong glances, 
to know whether she had used the weapon which the doc- 
tor ’s adventure had put into her hand. Apparently 
there was no convincing her that the girl’s intentions 
were not hostile. 

It did not simplify life for Margaret, this enmity of 
Mrs. Jakes. Lunch and breakfast under her pale, im- 
placable eye, that glided upon everything but skipped 
Margaret with a noticeable avoidance, had become or- 
deals to be approached with trepidation. Talk, when 
there was anything to talk about, died still-born in that 
atmosphere of lofty displeasure. It was done with a 
186 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


certain deftness; Mrs. Jakes was incapable of anything 
crude or downright; and when it was necessary, in or- 
der that the state of affairs should not be conspicuous, 
she could smile towards the wall at the girl’s back and 
spare her an empty word or so, in a way that was some- 
times as galling as much more dexterous snubs that Mar- 
garet had seen administered. One can “field” a snub 
that conveys its purpose in its phrasing and return it 
with effect to the wicket; but there is nothing to be 
done with the bare word that just stops a gap from be- 
coming noticeable. 

Ford was waiting outside the front door when Mar- 
garet came out after exercising the virtue of forbear- 
ance throughout a meal for which she had had no appe- 
tite. 

“What ’s the row with Mrs. Jakes?” he asked, with- 
out wasting words on preamble. 

“Oh, nothing,” answered Margaret crossly. “You ’d 
better ask her if you want to know. I ’m not going to 
tell you anything.” 

“Well, don’t, then. But you couldn’t arrange a 
truce for meal-times, could you ? It turns things sour — 
the way you two avoid looking at each other. ’ ’ 

“I don’t care,” said Margaret. “It ’s not my fault. 
I ’ve been as loyal as anybody — more loyal, I think, and 
certainly more helpful. I ’ve done simply everything 
she asked of me, and now she ’s like this.” 

Ford gave her a whimsical look of question. 

“Sure you haven’t at some time done more than she 
asked you?” he inquired. 

“Why?” Margaret was surprised. She laughed 
unwillingly. “Is it shrewdness or have you heard 
something ? ’ ’ 


187 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I haven’t heard a word,” he assured her. ‘‘But is 
that it?” 

“It ’s just your natural cleverness, then? Wonder- 
ful,” said Margaret. “You ought to go on the stage, 
really. Yes, that ’s what it is — I suppose. And now 
d’you think she ’ll see the reasonable view of it? Not 
she! I ’m a villain in skirts and if I won’t stand it, 
she ’ll ask the doctor to recommend a Sanatorium where 
I can be more comfortable. And just at this moment, I 
don’t think I can stand much more of it.” 

“Eh?” Ford scowled disapprovingly. “That ’s a 
rotten thing to say. You don’t feel inclined to tell me 
about it?” 

“I can’t; I mustn’t. That ’s the worst of it,” an- 
swered Margaret. “I can’t tell you anything.” 

“At any rate,” said Ford, “don’t take it into your 
head to go away. This won’t do you any harm in the 
end. You weren’t thinking of it seriously, were you?” 

“Wasn’t I? I was, though. I hate all this.” 

Ford took a couple of steps toward the door and a 
couple back. 

“It won’t weigh with you,” he said, “but I ’d be 
sorry if you went. 1 would, personally — awfully sorry. 
But if you must go, you must. It ’s a thing you can 
judge for yourself. Still, I ’d be sorry.” 

Margaret shrugged impatiently. 

“Oh, I ’d be sorry, too. It ’s been jolly, in a way, 
with you here, and all that. I ’d miss you, if you want 
to know. But — ” 

She stopped. Ford was looking at her very gravely. 

“Don’t go,” he said, and put his thin, sun-browned 
hand upon her shoulder. “It ’ll make things simpler 
188 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


for me if yon say yon won’t. Things will arrange 
themselves, but even if they don’t — don’t go away.” 

‘‘Simpler? How do you mean?” 

“Just that,” he answered. “If you stay, here we 
are — friends. We help each other out and talk and 
see each other and have time before us and there ’s no 
need to say anything. And it ’s because a lunger like 
me must n’t say anything till he sees whether he ’s go- 
ing to get well or — or stay here forever, that it ’ll be 
simpler if you don ’t go. Do you see ? ” 

His hand upon her shoulder was pleasant to feel ; she 
liked the freedom he took — and gave — in resting it there ; 
and his young, serious face, touched to delicacy by the 
disease that governed him, was patient and wise. 

“It ’s not because of that that you mustn’t say any- 
thing, ’ ’ she answered. ‘ ‘ I did n ’t know — you ’ve given 
me no warning. What can I say ? ’ ’ 

“Say you won’t go,” he begged. “Say you won’t 
act on any decision you ’ve made at present. And then 
we can go on — me lecturing you, and you flouting me, 
till — till I can say things — till I ’m free to say what I 
like to anybody.” 

She smiled rather nervously. “If I agree now,” she 
answered, “it will look as if — ” she paused; the thing 
was difficult to put in its nicety. But he was quick in 
the uptake. 

“It won’t,” he said. “I ’m not such a bounder as 
that.” 

“But I ’d rather be here than take my chance among 
other people,” she went on. “I suppose I can 
stand Mrs. Jakes if I give my mind to it, particularly 
if you ’ll see me through.” 

189 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I ’ll do what I can,” he promised. 4 'You ’ll do it, 
then? You ’ll stay?” 

“I suppose so,” said Margaret. His hand for a mo- 
ment was heavier on her shoulder ; she felt as though she 
had been slapped on the back, with the unceremonious- 
ness of a good friend; and then he loosed her. 

"Good of you,” he answered shortly. 

Both were weighted by the handicap of their race; 
they had been, as it were, trapped into a certain depth 
of emotion and self-revelation, and both found a diffi- 
culty in stepping down again to the safe levels of com- 
monplace intercourse. Ford shoved both hands into his 
pockets and half-turned from her. 

"Well — doing anything this afternoon?” he inquired 
in his tersest manner. 

"Yes,” said Margaret, whom the position could amuse. 

"What?” 

"Oh — going yachting,” she retorted. 

He sniffed and nodded. "I !m going to paint,” he 
announced. "So long.” 

Margaret smiled at his back as he went, and its ex- 
travagant slouch of indifference and ease. She knew 
he would not look round; once his mood was defined, it 
was reliable entirely; but she felt she would have for- 
given him if he had. The last word in such a matter 
as this is always capable of expansion, and probably 
some such notion was in the mind of the oracle who first 
pronounced that to women the last word is dear. 

He was still at his easel when she set forth to keep her 
appointment under the dam wall, working on his help- 
less canvas with an intensity that spared not a look as 
she went by on the parched grass below the stoep. It 
was a low easel, and he sat on a stool and spread his 
190 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


legs to each side of it, like a fighter crouched over an 
adversary, and his thumb was busy smudging among 
masses of pigment. Margaret could see the canvas as a 
faintly shining insurrection of colors which suggested 
that he had broken an egg upon it. A score of times 
in the past weeks those cryptic messes had irritated her 
or showed themselves as a weakness in their author. 
The domineering thumb and the shock tactics of the pal- 
ette knife had supplied her with themes for ridicule, 
and the fact that the creature could not paint and yet 
would paint and refused all instruction had put the seal 
of bitterness on many a day of weary irritation. But 
suddenly his incompetence and his industry, and even 
the unlovely fruit of their union — the canvases that he 
signed large with his name and hung unframed upon 
the walls of his room — were endearing ; they were laugh- 
able only as a little child is laughable, things to smile 
at and to prize. 

Her smiling and thoughtful mood went with her 
across the grass and dust and around the curved shoul- 
der of the dam wall, where Kamis, obedient to 
Paul’s signal, sat in the shade and awaited her. At her 
coming he sprang up eagerly with his face alight. His 
tweed clothes were, if anything, shabbier than before, 
but it seemed that no usage could subdue them to con- 
gruity with the broad black face and its liberal smile. 

‘‘This is great luck,’’ he said. “I half expected 
you ’d find it too hot for you. Are you all right again 
after that night ? ’ ’ 

Margaret seated herself on the slope of the wall and 
rested with one elbow on the freshness of its water-fed 
grass. 

“Quite all right,’ ’ she assured him. “Dr. Jakes has 
191 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


done everything that needed to be done. But I didn’t 
thank you half enough for what you did. ’ ’ 

He smiled and murmured deprecatingly and found 
himself a place to sit on at the foot of the wall, with legs 
crossed and his back to the sun. Leaning forward a lit- 
tle in this posture, with his drooping hat-brim shad- 
owing him, it was almost possible for Margaret to avoid 
seeing the blunt negro features for which she had come 
to feel something akin to dread ; they affected her in the 
same way that darkness with people moving in it will 
affect some children. 

4 ‘I saw Paul’s signal,” said Kamis. “We have an 
understanding, you know. He hangs a handkerchief in 
his window when he wants me and when you want me 
he hangs two. It shows as far as one can see the win- 
dow ; all the others are just black squares, and his has a 
white dash in it. That ’s rather how I see Paul, you 
know. Other people are just blanks, but he means 
something — to me, at any rate. By the way, before I 
forget — did you want me for anything in particular?” 

Margaret shook her head. “I wanted to talk,” she 
said; “and to make that police matter clear to you.” 

“Oh, that.” He looked up. “Thank you.” 

“Do you know of a Mr. Van Zyl, a police-officer?” 
she asked him. “He thinks you are guilty of sedition 
among the natives. I suppose it ’s nonsense, but he 
means to arrest you, and I thought you ’d better 
know.” 

“It ’s awfully good of you to bother about it, ’ ’ he an- 
swered. “I ’ll take care he does n ’t lay hands on me. 
But it is nonsense, certainly, and anybody but he would 
know it. He ’s been scouring the kraals in the south 
for me and giving the natives a tremendous idea of my 
192 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

importance. They were nervous enough of me before, 
but now — ” 

He shrugged his shoulders disgustedly, but still 
smiled. 

‘ ‘ That is what he said — they ’re uneasy, ’ ’ agreed Mar- 
garet. “But why are they? You see, I know scarcely 
more of you than Mr. Van Zyl. What is it that trou- 
bles them about you?” 

“Oh,” the Kafir deliberated. “It ’s simple enough, 
really. You see,” he explained, “the fact is, I ’m out 
of order. I don’t belong in the scheme of things as the 
natives and Mr. Van Zyl know it. These Kafirs are the 
most confirmed conservatives in the world, and when 
they see a man like themselves who can’t exist without 
clothes and a roof to sleep under, who can’t walk with- 
out boots or talk their language and is unaccountable 
generally, they smell witchcraft at once. Besides, it has 
got about that I ’m Kamis, and they know very well 
that Kamis was hanged about twenty years ago and his 
son taken away and eaten by the soldiers. So it ’s 
pretty plain to them that something is wrong somewhere. 
Do you see?” 

“Still” — Margaret was thoughtful — “Mr. Van Zyl 
is n ’t an ignorant savage. ’ ’ 

“No,” agreed Kamis. “He isn’t that. For dealing 
with Kafirs, he ’s probably the best man you could find ; 
the natives trust him and depend on him and when 
they ’re in trouble they go to him and he gives them the 
help they want. When they misbehave, he ’s on hand 
to deal with them in the fashion they understand and 
probably prefer. And the reason is, Miss Harding — the 
reason is, he ’s got a Kafir mind. He was born among 
them and nursed by them ; he speaks as a Kafir, under- 
13 193 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


stands as a Kafir and thinks as a Kafir, and he ’ll never 
become a European and put away Kafir things. 
They ’ve made him, and at the best he ’s an ambassador 
for the Kafirs among the whites. That ’s how they mas- 
ter their masters. Oh, they Ve got power, the Kafirs 
have, and a better power than their hocus-pocus of 
witchcraft. ’ ’ 

The afternoon was stored with the day’s accumulated 
heat and the cool of the grass beneath and the freshness 
of the water, out of sight beyond the wall but diffusing 
itself like an odor in the air, combined to contrast the 
spot in which they talked with the dazed sun-beaten 
land about them and gave to both a sense of privacy and 
isolation. The Kafir’s words stirred a fresh curiosity 
in Margaret. 

“He thinks you are making the natives dangerous,” 
she said. “I don’t believe that, of course, but what are 
you doing?” 

“What am I doing?” 

The black face was lifted to hers steadily and regarded 
her for a space of moments without replying. Nothing 
mild or subtle could find expression in its rude shaping 
of feature; the taciturnity of the Karoo itself gov- 
erned it. 

“What am I doing?” repeated Kamis. He dropped 
his eyes and his hands plucked at the grass absently. 
“Well, I ’m looking for a life for myself.” 

Margaret waited for him to continue but he was silent, 
plucking the grass shoots and shredding them in his fin- 
gers. 

“A life,” she prompted. “Yes; tell me.” 

Kamis finished with the grass in his hand and threw 
it with an abrupt gesture from him. 

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“I ’ll tell you if you like,” he said, as though sup- 
pressing a feeling of reluctance. “It isn’t anything 
wonderful; still — . You know already how I began; 
Paul told me how you learnt that ; and you can see where 
I ’ve got to with my education and my degree and my 
profession and all that. I ’m back where I came from, 
and besides what I ’ve learned, I ’ve got a burden of civ- 
ilized habits and weaknesses that keep me tied by the 
leg. I need friendship and company and equality with 
people about me, just as you do, and I ’m apt to find my- 
self rather forlorn and lost without them. In England, 
I had those things — I had some of them, at any rate; 
but what was there for a black doctor to do, do you 
think, among all those people who look on even a white 
foreigner as rather a curiosity?” 

“Wasn’t there anything?” Margaret was watching 
the nervous play of his gesticulating hands, so oddly 
emphasizing his pleasant English voice. 

“Nothing worth while. That ’s another of my trou- 
bles, you see. They taught me and trimmed me till I 
could n’t be content with occasional niggers at the docks 
suffering from belaying-pin on the brain. It was n ’t odd 
jobs I wanted, handed over to me to keep me happy; I 
wanted work. We niggers, we ’re a strong lot and we 
can stand a deal of wear and tear, but we don ’t improve 
by standing idle. I wanted to come out of that glass 
case they kept me in, with tutors and an allowance from 
the Government and an official guardian and all that 
sort of thing, and make myself useful.” 

He paused. “You understand that, don’t you?” he 
asked. 

“Of course I do,” replied Margaret. “If I could 
only come out too ! But I ’ve got all those weaknesses 
195 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of yours and this as well.” Her hand rested on her 
chest and he nodded. 

“You ’re different,” he said. “You must n’t be worn 
and torn.” 

“Well, so you came out here?” 

“It ’s my country,” he answered, and waved a hand 
at its barrenness. “It was my father’s, a good deal of 
it, in another sense too. When I saw that living in Eng- 
land wasn’t going to lead to anything, I thought of 
this. Somebody ought to doctor the poor beggars who 
live here and give them a lead towards a more comforta- 
ble existence, and I hoped I was the man to do it. I 
must have relations among them, too ; that ’s queer, is n ’t 
it? Aunts — my father had lots of wives — and lashings 
of cousins. I thought the steamer was bringing me out 
to them and I had a great idea of a welcome and all 
that; but I ’m no nearer it now than I was when I 
started. If ever I seem too grateful to you for your ac- 
quaintance, Miss Harding — if I seem too humble to be 
pleasant when I thank you for letting me talk to you — 
just remember I know that over there my poor black 
aunts are slaving like cattle and my uncles are driving 
them, and when I come they dodge among the huts and 
manoeuver to get behind me with a club.” 

“No,” answered Margaret slowly. “I ’ll remind you 
instead of all you ’re doing while I do nothing.” 

He shook his head. “I know what you do to me,” he 
said. ‘ 1 And I can ’t let you pity me. It was n ’t for want 
of warnings I came out here. I even had a letter from 
the Colonial Secretary. And I must tell you about the 
remonstrances of my guardian.” 

He laughed, with one of those quick transitions of 
196 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


mood which characterize the negro temperament. It 
jarred a little on Margaret. 

“He was the dearest old thing, ” he went on. “He ’s 
one of the greatest living authorities on the Bantu 
tongues — those are the real old negro languages, I be- 
lieve — and he was out here once in his wild youth. The 
Colonial Office appointed him to take charge of me and 
he used to come down to the schools where I was and 
give me a sovereign. He ’d have made a capital uncle. 
He had a face like a beefy rose, one of those big flabby 
ones that tumble to pieces when you pick them — all pink 
and round and clean, with kind, silly blue eyes behind 
gold spectacles. I had to get his consent before I could 
move, and I went to see him in a little room at the Brit- 
ish and Foreign Bible Society’s place in Queen Victoria 
Street, where they grow the rarer kinds of Bible under 
glass in holes in the wall; you know. He was correct- 
ing the proofs of a gospel in some Central African dia- 
lect and he had smudges of ink round his mouth. Suck- 
ing the wrong end of the pen, I suppose. He really was 
rather like a comic-paper professor, but as kind as could 
be. I sat down in the chair opposite to him, with the 
desk between us, and he heard what I ’d got to say, wip- 
ing his pen and sucking it while I told him. I fancy I 
began by being eloquent, but I soon stopped that. He ’s 
good form to the finger-tips and he looked so pained. 
So I cut it short and told him what I wanted to do and 
why. And when I ’d finished, he gave me a solemn 
warning. I must do what seemed right to me, he said; 
he wouldn’t take the responsibility of standing in my 
way; but there were grave dangers. He had known 
young men, promising young men, talented young 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


men — all negroes, of course — who had returned to 
Africa after imbibing and accepting the principles of 
our civilization. They, it was true, were West Afri- 
cans, but my danger was the same. They had left Eng- 
land in clothes, with a provision of soap in their trunks, 
and the result of their return to their own place was — 
they had lapsed! They had discontinued the clothes 
and forsworn the soap. ‘One of them,’ he said, ‘pre- 
sented a particularly sad example. He whom we had 
known and respected as David Livingstone Smith be- 
came the leader of a faction or party whose activities 
necessitated the despatch of a punitive expedition. Un- 
der a name which, being interpreted, signifies “The 
Scornful,” he presided over the defeat and massacre 
of that armed force.’ And he went on warning me 
against becoming an independent monarch and forcing 
an alliance on Great Britain by means of an ingenious 
war. He seemed relieved when I assured him that I had 
no ambition to sit in the seat of the Scornful. ’ ’ 

He laughed again, looking up at Margaret with his 
white teeth flashing broadly. 

“Yes,” she said. “That was — funny.” 

Odd! It made her vaguely restive to hear the Kafir 
make play with the shortcomings of the white man. It 
touched a fund of compunction whose existence she had 
not suspected. Something racial in her composition, 
something partizan and unreasoning, lifted its obliter- 
ated head from the grave in which her training and the 
conscious leanings of her mind had buried it. 

He had no thoughts of what it was that kept her from 
returning his smile. He imagined that his mission, his 
loneliness and his danger had touched her and made her 
grave. 


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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Well, you see how it all came about?” he went on. 
“It is n ’t really so extraordinary, is it ? And I ’m not 
discouraged, Miss Harding. I shall find a way, sooner 
or later; they ’re bound to get used to me in the end. 
In the meantime, Paul is teaching me Kafir, and there ’s 
you. You make up to me for a lot.” 

“Do I?” Margaret roused herself and sat up, de- 
liberately thrusting down out of her consciousness that 
instinctive element which bade her do injustice and with- 
hold from the man before her his due of acknowledg- 
ment. 

“Do I?” she said. “I ’d be glad if that were so.” 

He made to speak but stopped at her gesture. 

“No,” she said. “I would be glad. It ’s a wonder- 
fully great thing you ’ve started to do, and you ’re lucky 
to have it. You feel that, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “Oh, yes.” 

She eyed him with a moment’s hesitation, for he had 
not agreed with any alacrity, and a martyr who regards 
his stake with aversion is always disappointing. 

“Oh, you ’re sure to succeed,” she said. “People 
who undertake things like this don’t fail. And if, as 
you say, I ’m any kind of help to you, I ’m glad. I ’m 
awfully glad of it. It makes coming out here worth 
while, and I shall always be proud that I was your 
friend.” 

“Will you? Does it strike you like that?” 

“Yes,” said Margaret. 

She was above him on the bank and he sat on the 
ground with his head at the level of her knees. His 
worn and shabby clothes, the patience of his face, and 
even the hands that lay empty in his lap, joined with 
his lowly posture to give him an aspect of humility. 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


He was like a man acclimatized to oppression and ill 
fortune, accepting in a mild acquiescence, without ques- 
tion and without hope, the wrongs of a tyrannous 
destiny. 

“I shall be proud,” she repeated. “Always.” She 
held forth her hand to him in token of that friendship, 
leaning down that he might take. 

He did not do so at once. His eyes flashed to her 
with a startled glance, and he seemed at a loss. He 
lifted himself to his knees and put his own hand, large 
and fine for all the warm black of the back of it, the 
hand of a physician, refined to nice uses, under hers 
without clasping it. His movement had some of the 
timidity and slavishness of a dog unused to caresses; a 
dumb-brute gratitude was in his regard. He bent his 
black head humbly and printed a kiss upon her slender 
fingers. 

It was a thing that exhausted the situation ; Margaret, 
a little breathless and more than a little moved, met 
his gaze as he rose with a smile that was not clear of 
embarrassment. Neither knew what to say next; the 
kiss upon her hand had transformed their privacy into 
secrecy. 

“My love is like a black, black rose.” 

It sounded above them, from the top of the dam wall, 
an outrageous bellow of melody that thrust itself ob- 
scenely between them and split them asunder with the 
riving force of a thunderbolt. Intolerably startled by 
the suddenness of it, Margaret nearly fell down the 
slope, and saving herself with her hands turned her 
face, whitened by the shock, towards the source of the 
200 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


noise. Another face met hers, parting the long grasses 
on the crown of the wall. 

Her amazed and ambushed faculties saw it as a face 
only. It was attached to no visible body, solitarily self- 
sufficient in an unworthy miracle. It did not occur to 
her that the owner of it must be lying on his belly at 
the water’s edge, and for the moment she was not 
equal to deducing that he must have heard, and possi- 
bly even seen, all that had passed. She saw merely a 
face projected over her, that grinned with a fixity that 
was not without an imbecile suggestion. It was old with 
a moldy and decayed quality, bunched into pouches be- 
tween deep wrinkles, and yet weak and appealing. A 
wicked captive ape might show that mixture of gleeful 
sin and slavishness. 

“Don’t think I ’m not shocked, because I am,” it 
uttered distinctly. “Kissing! 1 saw you. An’ if any- 
body had told me that a lady of your looks would take 
on a Kafir, I wouldn’t ha’ believed it.” 

The face heaved and rose and lifted to corroborate it 
the cast-off clothes of Christian du Preez, enveloping 
the person of Boy Bailey. He shuffled to a sitting posi- 
tion on the edge of the wall, and it was a climax to 
his appearance that his big and knobly feet were bare 
and wet. He had been taking his ease with his feet in 
the water while they talked below, a hidden audience 
to their confidences. He shook his head at them. 

“Dam walls have got dam ears,” he observed. “You 
naughty things, you.” 

Margaret turned helplessly to Kamis for light. 

“What is it?” she asked. 

He had jumped to his feet and away from her at 
the first sound, and now turned a slow eye upon her. 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


The negro countenance is the home of crude emotions; 
the untempered extremes have been its sculptors through 
the ages. Its mirth is a guffaw, its sorrow is a howl, 
its wrath is the naked spirit of murder. He looked 
at her now with a face alight and transfigured with 
slaughterous intention. 

“Go away,” he said, in a whisper. “Go away now. 
He must have heard. I 11 deal with him.” 

“Don’t,” said Margaret. She rose and put a hand 
on his arm. “Will you speak to him, or shall I?” 

“Not you,” he answered quickly. “But — ” he was 
breathless and his face shone as with a light sweat. 
“He 11 tell,” he urged, still whispering. “You don’t 
know — it would be frightful. Go quickly away and 
leave me with him.” 

“They ’re at it still,” sounded the voice above them. 
“Damme, they can’t stop.” 

Kamis was desperate and urgent. He cast a wild eye 
towards the man on the top of the wall, and went on 
with agitated earnestness. 

“I tell you, you don’t know. It ’s enough that you 
were here with a Kafir and he kissed your hand.” He 
slapped his forehead in an agony. “Oh, I ought to be 
hanged for that. They 11 never believe — nobody will. 
In this country that sort of thing has only one mean- 
ing — a frightful one. I can’t bear it. If you don’t 
go” — he gulped and spoke aloud — “I 11 go up and 
kill him before your eyes.” 

“Now, now!” The voice remonstrated in startled 
tones. 

Margaret still had her hand on his arm, and could 
feel that he was trembling. She had recovered from 
the shock of the surprise and was anxious to purge the 
202 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


situation of the melodramatic character which it seemed 
to have assumed. Kamis’ whispered fears failed to con- 
vince her. 

“You ’ll do nothing of the kind,” she said. “I don’t 
care what people think. Speak to the man or I will.” 

Kamis lifted his head obediently. 

“Come down,” he said. “Come down and say what 
you want.” 

Mr. Bailey recovered his smile as he shook his head. 

“I can say it here,” he replied. “Don’t you worry, 
Snowball; it won’t strain my voice.” 

Kamis gulped. “What do you want?” he repeated. 

“Ah! What?” inquired Boy Bailey rhetorically. 
“I come here of an afternoon to collect my thoughts an’ 
sweeten the dam by soaking my Trilbies in it an’ what 
happens? I ’m half-deafened by the noise of kissing. 
I look round, an’ what do I see? I ask you — what?” 

He brought an explanatory forefinger into play, thick 
and cylindrical like a damaged candle. 

“First, thinks I, here ’s a story that ’s good for 
drinks in any bar between Dopfontein and Fereira 
— with perhaps a tar-and-feathering for the young 
lady thrown in.” He nodded meaningly at Margaret. 
“And it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened 
either.” 

“Ye-es,” said Kamis, who seemed to speak with 
difficulty. “But you won’t get away alive to tell that 
story. ’ ’ 

“Hear me out.” Boy Bailey shook his finger. 
‘ ‘ That ’s what I thought first. My second thought was : 
what ’s the sense of making trouble when perhaps 
there ’s a bit to be got by holdin’ my tongue? How 
does that strike you ? ’ ’ 


203 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Margaret had been leaning on her stick while he 
spoke, prodding the earth and looking down. Now she 
raised her eyes. 

“The first thought was the best, ,, she said. “You 
won’t get anything here.” 

“Eh?” Mr. Bailey was astonished. “You don’t 
understand, Miss,” he said. “Ask Snowball, there — 
he ’ll tell you. In this country we don’t stand women 
monkeying with niggers. Hell — no. It ’s worth, 
well—” 

“Not a penny,” said Margaret. “I don’t care in 
the least whom you tell. But — not one penny.” 

Kamis was listening in silence. Margaret smiled at 
him and he shook his head. On the top of the wall 
Mr. Bailey leaned forward persuasively. He had some- 
thing the air, in so far as his limitations permitted, of 
benevolence wrestling with obstinacy, the air which in 
auctioneers is an asset. 

“You don’t mean that, I know,” he said indulgently. 
“I can see you ’re going to be sensible. You wouldn’t 
let a trifle of ready money stand between you an’ 
keepin’ your good name — a nice, ladylike girl like 
you. Why, for less than what you ’ve done, women 
have been stoned in the streets before now. Come now; 
I ’m not going to be hard on you. Make an offer.” 

He sat above them against the sky, beaming pain- 
fully, always with a wary apprehension at the back of 
his regard. 

“You won’t go away?” demanded Kamis suddenly. 
“You won’t? You know I can’t do it if you ’re here. 
Then I ’m going to pay.” 

“You shan’t,” retorted Margaret. “I won’t have 
it, I tell you. I don’t care what he does.” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I Tn going to pay,” repeated Kamis. “It ’s that 
or — you won’t go away?” 

“No,” said the girl angrily. 

“Then I ’m going to pay.” He turned from her. 
“I ’ll give you twenty pounds,” he called to Bailey. 

“Double it,” replied Boy Bailey promptly; “add 
ten; take away the number you thought of; and the 
answer is fifty pounds, cash down, and dirt cheap at 
that. Put that in my hand and I ’ll clear out of here 
within the hour and you ’ll never hear of me again.” 

Kamis nodded slowly. “If I do hear of you again,” 
he said, “I ’ll come to you. Paul will bring you the 
money to-morrow morning, and then you ’ll go.” 

“Right-O.” Mr. Bailey rose awkwardly to his feet 
and made search for his boots. With them in his hands, 
he looked down on the pair again. 

“It ’s your risk,” he warned them. “If that cash 
don’t come to hand, you look out; there 11 be a slump 
in Kafirs.” 

He went off along the wall, disappearing in sections 
as he descended its shoulder. His gray head in its 
abominable hat was the last to disappear ; it sailed loft- 
ily, as became the heir to fifty pounds. 

Margaret frowned and then laughed. 

“What an absurd business,” she cried. “Supposing 
he had told and there had been a row — it would have 
been better than this everlasting stagnation. It would 
have been more like life.” 

The Kafir sighed. “Not life,” he answered gently. 
“Not your life. It meant a death in life — like mine.” 

His embarrassed and mournful look passed beyond 
her to the Karoo, spreading its desolation to the skies 
as a blind man might lift his eyes in prayer. 

205 


CHAPTER XI 


T HE deplorable hat which shielded Mr. Bailey 
from the eye of Heaven traveled at a thoughtful 
pace along the path to the farmhouse, cocked at a 
confident angle upon a head in which faith in the 
world was re-established. Boy Bailey had no doubt 
that the money would be forthcoming. What he had 
heard of the conversation between Margaret and Kamis 
had assured him of the Kafir’s resources and he felt 
himself already as solvent as if the minted money were 
heavy in his pockets. A pleasant sense of security 
possessed his versatile spirit, the sense that to-morrow 
may be counted upon. For such as Mr. Bailey, every 
day has its price. 

He gazed before him as he walked, at the house, with 
its kraals clustered before it and its humble appanage 
of out-buildings, with a gentle indulgence for all its 
primitive and domestic quality. Meals and a bed were 
what they stood for, merely the raw framework of 
intelligent life, needing to be supplemented and filled 
in with more stimulating accessories. They satisfied 
only the immediate needs of a man adrift and hungry ; 
they offered nothing to compensate a lively mind for 
its exile from the fervor of the world. Fifty pounds, 
the fine round sum, not alone made him independent 
of its table and its roof, but opened afresh the way to 
streets and lamplight, to the native heath of the wan- 
dering Bailey, who knew his fellow men from above and 
206 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


below — Kafirs, for instance, he saw from an altitude 
— but had few such opportunities as this of meeting 
them on a level of economic equality. There came to 
him, as he dwelt in thought upon his good fortune, 
a clamorous appetite for what fifty pounds would buy. 
Capetown was within his reach, and he recalled small 
hotels on steep streets, whose back windows looked 
forth on flat roofs of Malay houses, where smells of 
cooking and people loaded the sophisticated air and 
there was generally a woman weeping and always a man 
drunk. A little bedroom with an untidy bed and beer 
bottles cooling in the wash-hand basin by day ; 
saloons where the afternoon sun came slanting upon 
furtive men initiating the day’s activities over glasses; 
the electric-lit night of Adderley Street under the big 
plate-glass windows, where business was finished for the 
shops and offices and newly begun for the traders in 
weakness and innocence — he knew himself in such sur- 
roundings as these. He could slip into them as noise- 
lessly as a snake into a pool, with no disturbance to 
those inscrutable devotees of daylight and industry 
who carry on their plain affairs and downright trans- 
actions without suspecting the existence of the world 
beneath them, where Boy Bailey and his fellows stir 
and dodge and hide and have no illusions, save that 
hunger is ever fed or thirst quenched. 

He paused at the open door of the farmhouse, re- 
called to the present by the sound of voices from the 
kitchen at the end of the passage, where Christian du 
Preez and his wife were engaged in bitter talk. Boy 
Bailey stepped delicately over the doorstep on to the 
mat within and stood there to listen, if there should be 
anything worth listening to. A smile played over his 
207 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


large complacent features, and he waited with his head 
cocked to one side. Something in which the word 
* ‘tramp” occurred as he came through the door flat- 
tered him with the knowledge that the dispute was 
about himself. 

Mrs. du Preez spoke, and her shrill tones were 
plainly audible. 

“I don’t make no fuss when your dirty old Doppers 
outspan here an’ come sneakin’ in for coflee, an’ some 
of them would make a dog sick. Bailey ’s got his 
troubles, but he don’t do like Oom Piet Coetzee did 
when — ” 

An infuriate rumble from Christian broke in upon 
her. Boy Bailey smiled and shook his head. 

“Now, now,” he murmured. “Language, please.” 

“He ’s worse than a Kafir in the house,” Christian 
went on. “Woman, it makes me sick when he looks at 
you, like an old silly devil. ’ ’ 

“So long as he don’t look like an old silly Dutch- 
man, I don’t mind,” retorted his wife. “I ’m fairly 
sick of it all — you an’ your Doppers and all. And just 
because you can’t tell when a gentleman ’s having his 
bit of fun, you come and howl at me. ’ ’ 

“Howl.” The word seemed to sting. “Howl. Yes, 
instead of howling I should take my gun and let him 
have one minute to run before I shoot at him. You 
like that better, eh? You like that better?” 

“Christian.” There was alarm in Mrs. du Preez ’s 
voice. Behind the shut door of the kitchen, Bailey 
could picture Christian reaching down the big Martini 
that hung overhead with oiled rags wrapped about its 
breech. 


208 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


4 4 Time for me to cut in at this,” reflected Mr. 
Bailey. 4 4 I never was much of a runner. ’ ’ 

He walked along the passage with loud steps, acting 
a man returned from a constitutional, restored by the 
air and at peace with the whole human race. 

Mrs. du Preez and Christian were facing one another 
over the length of the table ; they turned impatient and 
angry faces towards the door as he opened it and thrust 
his personality into the scene. He fronted them with 
his terrible smile and his manner of jaunty amity. 

4 4 Hot, ain’t it?” he inquired. 44 I ’ve been down by 
the dam and the water ’s nearly on the boil.” 

Neither answered ; each seemed watchful of the 
other’s first step. Christian gave him only a dark 
wrathful look and Mrs. du Preez colored and looked 
away. Boy Bailey, retaining his smile under difficulties, 
tossed his hat to a chair and entered. 

4 4 Not interrupting anything, am I?” he inquired. 

4 4 You ’re not interrupting me,” replied Mrs. du 
Preez. 44 I ’ve said all I ’d got to say.” 

4 4 But I haven’t said all I ’ve got to say,” retorted 
Christian from his end of the table. 4 4 We was talking 
about you.” 

4 4 About me?” said Bailey, with mild surprise. 4 4 Oh. ” 

4 4 Yes.” The Boer, leaning forward with his hands 
gripping the thick end of the table, had a dangerous 
look which warned Bailey that impudence now might 
have disastrous consequences. 

4 4 Yes — about you. My wife says you are a gentleman 
and got gentleman’s manners and you are her old 
friend. She says you don’t mean harm and you 
don’t look bad and dirty. She says I don’t know how 
14 209 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


gentlemen speak and look and I am wrong to say you 
are a beast with the mark of the beast. ’ ’ 

Bailey shifted uncomfortably under his gaze of fury 
held precariously in leash, and edged a little towards 
Mrs. du Preez. He was afraid the big, bearded man 
might spring forward and help out his words with his 
fist. 

“Very kind of Mrs. du Preez,” he murmured warily. 

“She says all that. But 1 say” — the words rasped 
from Christian’s lips — “Z say you are a man rotten 
like an old egg and the breath in your mouth is a stink 
of wickedness. And I tell her that sometimes I get up 
from my food and go out because if I don’t I shall 
stamp you to death. Gott verdam! Your dirty eyes 
and your old yellow teeth grinning — I stand them no 
longer. You have had rest and skoff — now you go.” 

Bailey’s face showed some discomposure. His dis- 
advantage lay in the danger that the Boer was plainly 
willing to be violent. He had returned to the house 
with the intention of announcing that on the morrow 
he would take his departure, but it was not the prospect 
of spending a night in the open that disconcerted him. 
It was simply that he disliked to be treated thus loftily 
by a man he despised. He stole a glance at Mrs. du 
Preez. 

She was staring at her husband with shrewdness and 
doubt expressed in her face, as though she were check- 
ing her valuation of him by the fierce figure at the other 
end of the table, with big, leathery hands clutched on 
the edge of the board and thin, sun-tanned face intent 
and wrathful above the uneven beard. She was re- 
visiting with an unsympathetic eye each feature of that 
irreconcilable factor in her life, her husband. 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“D’you hear me?” thundered the Boer. “You go.” 

He pointed with sudden forefinger to the door, and his 
gesture was unspeakably daunting and wounding. 

“Ye-es,” hesitated Boy Bailey, and sighed. The 
pointing finger compelled him like a hand on his col- 
lar, and he moved with shuffling and unwilling feet to 
the chair where his hat lay. He fumbled with it as 
he picked it up and it fell to the floor. The finger did 
not for a moment pretermit its menacing command. 
He sighed again and drew the door open. 

“Bailey.” Mrs. du Preez spoke sharply, with a 
trembling catch in her voice. “Bailey, you stop here.” 

“Eh?” He turned in the doorway with alacrity. 
Another moment and it might have been too late. 

“Go on,” cried the Boer. “Out you go, or I ’ll — ” 

“Stop where you are, Bailey,” cried Mrs. du Preez. 

She came across the room with a run and put herself 
in front of Bailey, facing her husband. 

“Now,” she said, “now what d’you think you’ll 
do?” 

The Boer heaved himself upright, and they fronted 
one another stripped of all considerations save to be 
victor in the struggle for the fate of Boy Bailey. It 
was the iron-hard cockney against the Boer. 

“I told him to go,” said Christian. “If he doesn’t 
go — I ’ll shoot.” 

He cast an eye up to the gun in its place upon the 
wall. 

“You will, will you?” The bitter voice was mock- 
ing. “Now, Christian, you just listen to me.” 

‘ ‘ He ’ll go, ’ ’ said the Boer. 

“Oh, he ’ll go,” answered Mrs. du Preez. “He ’ll 
go all right, if you say so. But mark my words. You 
211 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


go turning my friends out of the house like this, and 
so help me, I T1 go too. Get that straight in your head, 
old chap — it ’s right. Bailey ’s not fretting to stay 
with you, you know. You ’re not such good company 
that you need worry about it. It ’s me he came to 
see, not you. And you pitch him out; that ’s all. 
Bailey goes to-night, does he? Then I go in the morn- 
ing.’ ’ 

She nodded at him, the serious, graphic nod that 
promises more earnestly than a shaken fist. 

4 ‘What!” The Boer was taken by surprise. “If 
he goes — ” 

“I ’ll go— yes.” 

She was entirely in earnest; her serious purpose was 
plain to him in every word she spoke. She threatened 
that which no Boer could live down, the flight of a 
wife. He stared at her almost aghast. In the slow 
processes of his amazed mind, he realized that this, too, 
had had to come — the threat if not the deed; it was 
the due and logical climax of such a marriage as his. 
Her thin face, still pretty after its fashion, and her 
slight figure that years had not dignified with matronly 
curves, were stiffened to her monstrous purpose. 
Whether she went or not, the intention dwelt in her. 
It was another vileness in Boy Bailey that he should 
have given it the means of existence. 

Both of them, his wife and Mr. Bailey, screened by 
her body, thought that he was vanquished. He stood 
so long without answering that they expected no an- 
swer. Bailey was framing a scene for the morrow in 
which he should renounce the reluctant hospitality of 
the Boer: “I can starve, but I can’t stand meanness.” 

212 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

He had got as far as this when the Boer recovered him- 
self. 

With an inarticulate cry he was suddenly in motion, 
irresistibly swift and forceful. A sweep of his arm 
cleared Mrs. du Preez from his path and sent her reel- 
ing aside, leaving Boy Bailey exposed. Christian 
seemed to halt at the threshold of the room and thrust 
a long arm out, of which the forked hand took Boy 
Bailey by the thick throat and dragged him in. He 
held the shifty, ruined face, now contorted and writhen 
from his grip like the face of a hanged man, at the 
level of his waist and beat upon it with the back of 
his unclenched right hand again and again. Boy 
•Bailey’s legs trailed upon the floor lifelessly; only at 
each dull blow, thudding like a mallet on his blind 
face, his weak arms fluttered convulsively. Mrs. du 
Preez, who had fallen against the table, leaned forward 
with hands clasped against her breast and watched with 
a fascinated and terror-stricken stare. 

Boy Bailey uttered a windy moan and Christian 
dropped him with a gesture of letting fall something 
that defiled his hand. The beaten creature fell like a 
wet towel and was motionless and limp about his feet. 
Across his body, Christian looked at his wife. He 
seemed to her to tower above that meek and impotent 
carcass, to impend hatefully and dreadfully. 

‘ ‘ Throw water on him , ’ ’ he said. “In an hour, I will 
come back and if I see him then, I will shoot. ’ ’ 

She did not answer, but continued to stare. 

“You hear?” he demanded. 

She gulped. “Yes.” 

“Good,” he said. He stepped over the body of Boy 
213 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Bailey and mounted on a chair, where he reached down 
the rifle. He gave his wife another look; she had not 
moved. He shrugged and went out with the gun under 
his arm. 

It was not till the noise of his steps ceased at the 
house-door that Mrs. du Preez moved from her attitude 
of defeat and fear. She came forward on tiptoe, edged 
past Boy Bailey’s feet and crouched to peer round the 
doorpost. She had to assure herself that Christian was 
gone. She went furtively along the passage and 
peeped out over the kraals to be finally certain of it 
and saw him, still with the gun, walking down to the 
further fold where Paul was knee-deep in sheep. She 
came back to the room and closed the door carefully, 
going about it with knitted brows and a face steeped 
in preoccupation. Not till then did she turn to attend 
to Boy Bailey. 

“Oh, God,” she cried in a startled whisper as she bent 
above him, for his eyes were open in his bloody face 
and the battered features were feeling their way to the 
smile. 

She fell on her knees beside him. 

“Bailey,” she said breathlessly. “I thought you — 
I thought he ’d killed you.” 

Boy Bailey rose on one elbow and felt at his face. 

“Him!” he exclaimed, with all the scorn that could 
be conveyed in a whisper. “Him! He couldn’t kill 
me in a year. Why, he never even shut his fist. ’ ’ 

He wiped the blood from his fingers by rubbing them 
on the smooth earth of the floor and sat up. 

“Why,” he said, “take his gun away and I wouldn’t 
say but what I ’d hammer him myself. Him kill me 
214 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


— why, down in Capetown once I had a feller go for 
me with a bottle an’ leave me for dead, an’ I was 
havin’ a drink ten minutes after he ’d gone. He isn’t 
coming back yet, is he ? ” 

“No — not for an hour.” 

She had hardly heard him, so desperately was she 
concentrated on the one idea that occupied her mind. 

“Well, I won’t wait for him,” said Mr. Bailey. 
“I ’ll get some of this muck off my face an’ — an’ have 
a drink, if you ’ll be so kind, and then I ’ll fade. But 
if ever I see him again — ” 

“Bailey,” said Mrs. du Preez, “where ’ll you go?” 

“Where? Well, to-night I reckon to sleep in plain 
air, as the French say — or is it the Germans? — some- 
where about here till I can get word with a certain 
nigger who owes me money. And then, off to the 
station on my tootsies and take train back to the land 
of ticky (threepenny) beer and Y. M. C. A.’s.” 

“England?” asked Mrs. du Preez. 

“England be — ” Boy Bailey hesitated — “mucked,” 
he substituted. “Capetown, me dear; the metropolis 
of our foster motherland. It ’s Capetown for me, where 
the Christian Kafirs come from.” 

“Bailey,” said Mrs. du Preez. “Bailey, take me.” 

“What?” demanded Boy Bailey. “Take you 
where ? ’ ’ 

“Take me with you.” She was still kneeling beside 
him and she put a hand on his arm urgently, looking 
into his blood-stained and smashed face. “I won’t stay 
with him now. I said I wouldn’t and I won’t. I ’d 
die first. And you and me was always good pals, 
Bailey. Only for that breakdown at Fereira, we ’d 
215 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


have — we might have hitched up together. You were 
always hinting — you know you were, Bailey. Don’t 
you know?” 

“ Hinting?” He was surprised at last, hut still 
wary. “But I wasn’t hinting at — supporting you?” 

“I didn’t say you were,” she answered eagerly. 
“Bailey, I’m not a fool; I’ve got temperament too. 
You said yourself I had, only the other day. And — 
and I can ’t stop with him now. ’ ’ 

Mr. Bailey looked at his fingers thoughtfully and felt 
his face again. 

“Fact is,” he said deliberately, “you ’re off your 
balance. You ’ll live to thank me for not taking ad- 
vantage of it. You ’ll say, ‘Bailey had me and let me 
go, as a gentleman would. He remembered I was a 
mother. Bless him.’ That ’s what you ’ll say when 
you ’re an old woman with your grandchildren at your 
knee. And anyhow, what d ’ you think you ’d do in 
Capetown? You ain’t far off forty, are you?” 

She shook him by the arm she held to fix his atten- 
tion. 

“Bailey,” she said. “That don’t matter for a time. 
I ’ve got a bit of money, you know. I ’m not leaving 
that behind.” 

4 ‘ Money, have you ? ’ ’ 

The wonderful thing in women such as Mrs. du Preez 
is that they see so clearly and yet act so blindly. 
They know they are sacrificed for men’s gain and do 
not conceal their knowledge. They count upon base- 
ness, cruelty and falsity as characteristics of men in 
general and play upon these qualities for their purposes. 
But furnish them with a reason for depending upon a 
man, and they will trust him, uphold him, obey him, lean 
216 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


upon him and compensate the flimsiest rascal for the 
world’s contempt and hardness by yielding him a will- 
ing victim. 

They looked at each other. Bailey still sitting on 
the floor, she on her knees, and each read in the other’s 
eyes an appraisement and a stratagem. The coffee- 
pot that stood all day beside the fire to be ready for 
Boer visitors, sibilated mildly at their backs. 

* ‘ It would n ’t last for ever, the bit you ’ve got, ’ ’ said 
Bailey. “There ’s that to think of.” 

“It ’s a good bit,” she replied. 

* ‘ Is it — is it as much as fifty pounds ? ” he asked. 

“It ’s more,” she answered. “Never you mind how 
much it is, Bailey. It ’s a good bit and it ’s mine, not 
his.” 

He thought upon it with his under-lip caught up be- 
tween his teeth, almost visibly reviewing the possibilities 
of profit in the company of a woman who had money 
about her. Mrs. du Preez continued to urge him in hard 
whispers. 

“I ’d never manage it by myself, Bailey, or I 
would n ’t be begging you like this. I ’ve tried to bring 
myself to it again and again, but I was n’t game enough. 
And it isn’t as if I was goin’ to be a burden to you. 
It won’t be long before I ’ll get a job — you ’ll see. 
A barmaid, p’r’aps, or I might even get in again with 
a show. I have n ’t lost my figure, anyhow. And as 
for staying here now, with him, after this — Bailey, I ’ll 
take poison if you leave me.” 

Boy Bailey frowned and looked up at the clock which 
swung a pendulum to and fro against the wall, as 
though to invite human affairs to conduct themselves in 
measure. 


217 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


4 ‘Well, we haven’t got too much time to talk about 
it,” he said. “He said an hour. Now supposin’ I 
take you, you know it ’s a case of footin’ it down the 
line to the next siding? It wouldn’t suit me to be 
nabbed with you on my hands. He ’d shoot as soon 
as think about it, and then where would I be ? ” 

“I can walk,” Mrs. du Preez assured him eagerly. 
“You ’ll take me with you, then, Bailey?” 

Boy Bailey sighed. “Oh, I ’ll take you,” he said. 
“I ’ll take you, since your mind ’s made up. My good 
nature has been the ruin of me — that and my tempera- 
ment. But don’t forget later on that I warned you.” 

Mrs. du Preez jumped up. “I won’t forget,” she 
promised. “This is my funeral. Get up from there, 
Bailey, and we ’ll have a drink on it.” 

They made their last arrangements over the glasses. 
Christian’s absence was to be counted upon for the 
greater part of the next day ; their road would be clear. 

The first word above a whisper which had been 
spoken since Christian left them was by Mrs. du Preez. 
She sat down her glass at the last with a jolt. 

“But, Bailey,” she cried, on a note of hysterical 
gaiety, “Bailey — we got to be careful, I know, and all 
that — but what a lark it ’ll be.” 

He stared at her, not quick enough to keep up with 
her mounting mood. She was flushed and feverish with 
excitement and the reaction of strong feeling and her 
eyes danced like a child’s on the brink of mischief. 

“The woman ’s a fool,” thought Boy Bailey. 

His own attitude towards the affair, as he reviewed 
it that night in the forage-shed, where he reposed full 
dressed in the scent of dry grasses and stared reflectively 
through a gap in the roof at the immortal patience of 
218 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


the stars, was strictly businesslike. Not even a desire 
to be revenged upon Christian du Preez, who had called 
him names and beaten him, impaired the consistency of 
that attitude. Boy Bailey allowed for a certain pro- 
portion of thrashings in his experiences; they ranked 
in the balance-sheet of his transactions as a sort of 
office expenses. They had to be kept down to the low- 
est figure compatible with convenience and good 
business, but they were not to be weighed against a 
lucky deal. The one thing that engaged his fancy was 
the fact that the woman, though close on forty, would 
come with money about her — more than fifty pounds. 
It would make up his equipment to a handsome, an im- 
posing, figure. Never before had he possessed a round 
hundred pounds in one sum. The mere possibilities 
that it opened out were exciting; it seemed as large 
and as inexhaustible as any other large sum. He did 
not dwell on the fact that it belonged to Mrs. du Preez 
and not to him; he did not even give his mind to a 
scheme for securing it. All that was detail, a thing to 
be settled at any advantageous moment. A dodge, a 
minute of drowsiness on her part — or perhaps, at most, 
a blow on the breasts — would secure the conveyance of 
the money to him. In the visions of Capetown that 
hovered on the outskirts of his thought, a ghostly 
seraglio attending his nod, there moved many figures, 
but Mrs. du Preez was not among them. His imagina- 
tion made a circuit about her and her fate, or at most 
it glanced with brevity and distaste on the spectacle of a 
penniless woman weeping on a bench at a wayside 
station, seeing the tail-lights of a vanishing train 
blurred through tears. 

“I knew I ’d strike it lucky one of these days,” was 
219 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Mr. Bailey’s reflection, as he composed himself to 
slumber. “With two or three more like her — I ’ll be a 
millionaire yet.” 

The stars watched his upturned face as he slept with 
a still scrutiny that must have detected aught in its 
unconscious frankness that could redeem it or suggest 
that once it had possessed the image of God. He 
slept as peacefully, as devotedly, as a baby, confiding 
bis defenselessness to the night with no tremors or un- 
certainty. He left unguarded the revelations of his 
loose and feeble face that the mild stars searched, al- 
ways with their stare of stagnant surprise. 

In the farmhouse, there was yet a light in the win- 
dows when dawn paled the eastward heaven. Christian 
du Preez slept in his bed unquietly, with clenched hands 
outstretched over the empty place beside him, and in 
another room Paul had transferred himself from wak- 
ing dreams to a dream-world. Tiptoeing here and there 
in the house, Mrs. du Preez had gathered together the 
meager handful of gear that was to go with her; she 
had shaken out a skirt that she treasured and made 
ready a hat that smelt of camphor. Her money, in 
sovereigns, made a hard and heavy knob in a knotted 
napkin. All was gathered and ready for the journey 
and yet the light shone in the window of the parlor 
where she sat through the hours. Her hands were in 
her lap and there were no tears in her eyes — it was 
beyond tears. She was taking leave of her furniture. 

She saw her husband at breakfast, facing him across 
the table with a preoccupied expression that he took 
for sullenness. She did not see the grimness of his 
countenance nor mark his eye upon her ; she was think- 
ing in soreness of heart of six rosewood chairs, up- 
220 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


holstered in velvet, a rosewood table, a sofa, and the 
rest of it — the profit of her marriage, her sheet-anchor 
and her prop. She felt as though she had given her 
life for them. 

Christian rode away with his back to the sun, with 
no word spoken between them, and as his pony broke 
into a lope — the Boer half-trot, half-canter, — he caught 
and subdued an impulse to look back at the house. 
Even if he had looked, he would hardly have seen the 
cautious reconnoiter of Boy Bailey’s head around the 
corner of it, as that camp-follower of fortune made 
sure of his departure. Thrashings Mr. Bailey could 
make light of, but the Boer’s threat of shooting had 
stuck in his mind. He rested on his hands and knees 
and stuck his chin close to the ground in prudent care 
as he peered about the corner of the house to see the 
owner of the rifle make a safe offing. 

Even when the Boer had dwindled from sight, swal- 
lowed up by the invisible inequalities of the ground 
that seemed as flat as a table, he avoided to show him- 
self in the open. He lurked under the walls of kraals, 
frightening farm Kafirs who came upon him suddenly 
and finally made a sudden appearance before Paul at 
the back of the house. 

“ I won’t waste words on you,” he said to the boy. 
‘‘I ’ve got something better to do, thank God. But I ’m 
told you have a message for me.” 

“Two messages,” said Paul. 

“One ’ll do,” replied Boy Bailey. “I don’t want to 
hear you talking. I ’ve been insulted here and I ’m 
not done with you yet. Mind that. So hand over what 
you ’ve got for me and be done with it — d’you hear?” 

“Here it is.” Paul put his hand into the loose bosom 

221 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of his shirt and drew out a small paper packet. He 
held it out to Boy Bailey. 

“That!” Boy Bailey trembled as he seized it, with 
a frightful sense of disappointment. He had seen the 
money as gold, a brimming double handful of minted 
gold, with gold ’s comforting substance and weight. 
The packet he took into his hand was no fatter than 
a fat letter and held no coin. 

He rent the covering apart and stared doubtfully at 
the little wad of notes it contained, sober-colored paper 
money of the Bank of Africa. It had never occurred 
to him that the Kafir, Kamis, would have his riches in so 
uninspiring a shape. Two notes of twenty pounds each 
and one of ten and all three of them creased and dirty. 
No chink, no weight to drag at his pocket and keep him 
in mind of it, none of the pomp and panoply of riches. 

“Why — why,” he stammered. “I told him — cash 
down. Damn the dirty Kafir swindler, what does he 
call this?” 

“Blackmail, I think he said,” replied Paul. “That 
was the other message. If you don’t do what you said 
you ’d do, you T1 go to tronh (jail) for it, and I am to 
be a witness. That ’s if he doesn’t kill you himself — 
like I told him he ’d better do.” 

Boy Bailey arrived by degrees at sufficient composure 
to pocket the notes, thrusting them deep for greater se- 
curity and patting them through the cloth. 

“Oh, you told him that, did you?” he said. “And 
you call yourself a white man, do you ? Murder, is it ? 
You look out, young feller. You don’t know the risks 
you ’re running. I ’m not a man that forgets.” 

But Paul was not daunted. He watched the battered 
face that threatened him with an expression which the 
222 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


other did not understand. There was a curious warm 
interest in it that might have flattered a man less bare 
of illusions as to his appearance. 

“I suppose you ’ve never seen a black eye before, 
you gaping moon-calf/ ’ he cried irritably. “What are 
you staring like that for?” 

Paul smiled. “I would give you a shilling again to 
let me make a model of you,” he answered. “I ’d give 
you two shillings. ’ ’ 

Boy Bailey swore viciously and swung on his heel. 
He was stung at last and he had no answer. He made 
haste to get around the corner and away from eyes that 
would keep the memory of him as he appeared to Paul. 

It was more than an hour later that Mrs. du Preez 
discovered him, squatting under the spikes of a dusty 
aloe, humped like a brooding vulture and grieving over 
that last affront. He lifted mournful eyes to her as she 
stood before him. 

“Bailey,” she said breathlessly. “I hunted every- 
where for you. I thought you ’d gone without me.” 

She was ready for the long flight on foot. All that 
she had in the way of best clothes was on her body, 
everything she could not bring herself to leave. The 
seemliness of Sunday was embodied in her cloth coat 
and skirt, her cream silk bosom and its brooches, the 
architectural elaborateness of her hat. She stood in the 
merciless sun in all her finery, with sweat on her fore- 
head and a small bundle in each hand. 

“You ’re coming, then?” he asked stupidly. 

She stamped her foot impatiently. “Of course I ’m 
coming,” she said. “Don’t go into all that again, 
Bailey. D ’ you think I ’d stop with him now, after — 
after everything?” 


223 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

She was holding desperately to her resolution, eager 
to be off before the six rosewood chairs, the table and 
the sofa should overcome her and make good their claim 
to her. 

“What ’s those?” Bailey nodded at the bundles tor- 
pidly. 

“Oh,” she was burning to be moving, to be com- 
mitted, to see her boats flaming and smoking behind 
her. “This is grub, Bailey. We ’ll want grub, won’t 
we? And this is my things.” 

“The — er — money, I suppose, an’ all that?” 

“Yes, yes. Oh, do come on, Bailey. The money ’s 
all here. Everything ’s here. You carry the grub an’ 
let ’s be going.” 

“The grub, eh?” Mr. Bailey rose grunting to his 
feet. “You ’d rather — well, all right.” 

None viewed that elopement to mark how Mrs. du 
Preez slipped her free hand under Bailey’s arm and 
went forth at his side in the bravery she had donned 
as though to bring grace to the occasion. Paul was 
down at the dam with sheep, and before he returned the 
brown distances of the Karoo had enveloped them and 
its levels had risen behind them to blot out the dishon- 
ored roof of the house. 

At the hour of the midday meal, Paul ate alone, con- 
tentedly and unperturbed by his mother’s absence. 
For all he knew she had one of her weeping fits up- 
stairs in her bedroom, and he was careful to make no 
noise. 


224 


CHAPTER XII 


M ARGARET entered the drawing-room rather 
late for tea and Mrs. Jakes accordingly ac- 
knowledged her arrival with an extra stoniness of re- 
gard. In his place by the window, Ford turned from 
his abstracted contemplation of the hot monotony 
without and sent her a discreet and private smile 
across the tea-table. Mrs. Jakes, noting it and the 
girl’s response, tightened her mouth unpleasantly as 
the suspicion recurred to her that there was “ something 
between” Mr. Ford and Miss Harding. More than 
once of late she had noticed that their intercourse had 
warmed to the stage when the common forms of expres- 
sion need to be helped out by a code of sympathetic looks 
and gestures. She addressed the girl in her thinnest 
tones of extreme formality. 

“I thought perhaps you were n’t coming in,” she said. 
“I ’m afraid the tea ’s not very hot now.” 

“I ’ll ring,” said Mr. Samson, diligently handing a 
chair. 

“ Please don’t,” said Margaret, taking it. “I don’t 
mind at all. Don’t bother, anybody.” 

“I forget if you take sugar, Miss Harding,” said 
Mrs. Jakes, pouring negligently from the pot. Ford 
grinned and turned quickly to the window again. 

“No sugar, thanks,” answered Margaret agreeably; 
“and no milk and no tea.” 

“No tea?” Mrs. Jakes raised her eyebrows in severe 

15 225 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

surprise and looked up. The movement sufficed to 
divert the stream from the tea-pot so that it flowed 
abundantly -on the hand which held the cup and splashed 
thence into the sugar basin. She sat the pot down 
sharply and reached for her handkerchief with a smoth- 
ered ejaculation of annoyance. 

“Oh, I ’m sorry/ ’ said Margaret. “But how lucky 
you didn’t keep it hot for me. You might have been 
scalded, might n ’t you ? ’ ’ 

“Thank you,” replied Mrs. Jakes, with all the dignity 
she could summon while she mopped at her sleeve. 
“Thank you; I am not hurt.” 

That was the second time Margaret had turned her 
own guns, her own little improvised pop-guns of inef- 
fectual enmity, back upon her; and she did not quite 
understand how it was done. The first time had been 
when she had pretended not to hear a remark Mar- 
garet had addressed to her. The girl had crossed the 
room and joined Dr. Jakes in his hearth-rug exile, and 
Mr. Samson had stared while Ford laughed silently 
but visibly. Mrs. Jakes had not understood the 
implication of it; she was only aware, reddening and 
resentful, that Margaret had scored in some subtle 
fashion. 

The hatred of Mrs. Jakes was a cue to consistency 
of action no less plain than her love. “I like people to 
know their own minds, ’ ’ was one of her self -revelations, 
and she believed that worthy people, decent people, good 
people were those who saw their way clear under all 
circumstances of friendship and hostility and were pre- 
pared to strike and maintain a due attitude upon any 
encounter. Her friends were those who indulged her 
with the forms of courtesy and consideration; her ene- 
226 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


mies those who opposed her or were rude to her. To 
her friends she returned their indulgence in kind; her 
enemies she pursued at each meeting and behind their 
backs with an implacable tenacity of hate. One con- 
ceives that in the case of such lives as hers, only those 
survive whose feebleness is supplemented by claws. 
Take away their genuine capacity for making themselves 
disagreeable at will, and they would be trodden under 
and extinguished. Mrs. Jakes’ girlhood was illuminated 
by the example of an aunt, who lived for fourteen years 
with only a thin wall between her and a person with 
whom she was not on speaking terms. The aunt had 
known her own mind with such a blinding clearness that 
she was able to sit with folded hands, listening through 
the wall to the sounds of a raving husband murdering 
her enemy, and no impulse to cry for help had arisen 
to dim the crystal of that knowledge. “She was a bad 
one at forgiving, was your Aunt Mercy,” Mrs. Jakes 
had been told, always with a suggestion in the speaker’s 
voice that there was something admirable in such in- 
flexibility. Primitive passions, the lusts of skin-clad an- 
cestors, fortified the anemia of the life from which she 
was sprung. Marriage by capture would have shocked 
her deeply, but she would not have been the worse 
squaw. 

She dropped into a desultory conversation with Mr. 
Samson, with occasional side-references to Dr. Jakes, 
and managed at the same time to keep an eye on the other 
two. Margaret had walked across to Ford, and was sit- 
ting at his side on the window-ledge; he had a three- 
days-old copy of the Dopfontein Courant, in which the 
scanty news of the district was printed in English and 
Dutch and they were looking it over together. Ford 
227 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


held the paper and Margaret leaned against his arm to 
share it; the intimacy of their attitude was disagreeable 
to Mrs. Jakes. An alliance between the two of them 
would be altogether too strong for her, and besides, it 
was warfare as she understood it to destroy the foe’s 
supports whenever possible. 

“ Nothing in the rag, I suppose, Ford?” asked Mr. 
Samson, in his high, intolerant voice. 

“Not a thing,” answered Ford, “unless you ’re inter- 
ested in the price of wools.” 

“Grease wool per pound,” suggested Margaret. 
“Guess how much that is, Mr. Samson.” 

“It ought to be cheap,” said Mr. Samson. “It sounds 
beastly.” 

“Well, then, how ’s this?” Margaret craned across 
Ford’s shoulder and read: “ ‘Mr. Ben Bongers of Tom- 
town, the well-known billiard-marker, underwent last 
week the sad experience of being kicked at the hands of 
Mr. Jacobus Van Dam’s quaai cock. Legal proceedings 
are pending.’ There now. But does anybody know 
what kicked him?” 

“Cock ostrich,” rumbled Dr. Jakes from the back of 
the room. “Quaai — that means bad-tempered.” 

“You see,” said Ford, “ostriches are common here- 
abouts. They say cock and ostrich is understood. What 
would they call a barn-door cock, though?” 

“A poultry,” said Mr. Samson. “But we must watch 
for those legal proceedings ; they ought to be good. ’ ’ 

Mrs. Jakes had listened in silence, but now an idea 
occurred to her. 

“There ’s nothing about that woman in Capetown 
this week?” she asked, and smiled meaningly as she 
caught Margaret’s eye. 


228 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“No,” said Ford. “I was looking for that, but 
there ’s nothing. ’ ’ 

“What woman was that?” inquired Margaret. 

“Oh, a rotten business. A woman married a Kafir 
parson — a white woman. There ’s been a bit of a row 
about it. ’ ’ 

“Oh,” said Margaret, understanding Mrs. Jakes’ 
smile. “I didn’t see the paper last week.” 

She looked at Mrs. 'Jakes with interest. Evidently 
the little woman saw the matter of Kamis, and Mar- 
garet’s familiar acquaintance with him, as a secret with 
which she could be cowed, a piece of dark knowledge that 
would be held against her as a weapon of final resort. 
The fact did more than all Kamis’ warnings and Boy 
Bailey’s threats to enlighten her as to the African view 
of a white woman who had relations, any relations but 
those of employer and servant, with a black man. Not 
only would a woman in such a case expose herself to the 
brutal scandal that flourishes in the atmosphere of bars 
where Boy Baileys frame the conventions that society 
endorses, but she would be damned in the eyes of all the 
Mrs. Jakes in the country. They would tar and feather 
her with their contumely and bury her beneath their 
disgust. 

She returned Mrs. Jakes’ smile till that lady looked 
away with a long-drawn sniff of defiance. 

“But why a row?” asked Margaret. “If she was 
satisfied, what was there to make a row about?” 

She really wanted to hear what two sane and average 
men would adduce in support of Mrs. Jakes’ views. 

Old Mr. Samson shook his head rebukingly. 

“Men and women ain’t on their own in this world,” 
he said seriously. “They ’ve got to think of the rest of 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


the crowd. We ’re all in the same boat out here — white 
people holdin’ up the credit of the race. Can’t afford 
to have deserters goin’ over to the other camp, don’t y’ 
know. Even supposin’ — I say, supposin ’ — there was 
nothing else to prevent a white girl from taking on a 
nigger, it ’s lowerin’ the flag — what?” 

“ A woman like that deserves to be horsewhipped,” 
cried Mrs. Jakes, with sudden vigor. “To go and marry 
a Kafir — the vile creature.” 

“This is very interesting,” said Margaret. “Do you 
mean the Kafir is vile, Mrs. Jakes, or the woman?” 

“I mean both,” retorted Mrs. Jakes. “In this coun- 
try we know what such creatures are. A respectable 
woman does n’t let a Kafir come near her if she can help 
it. She never speaks to them except to give them their 
orders. And as to — to marrying them, or being friendly 
with them — why, she ’d sooner die.” 

Margaret had started a subject which no South Af- 
rican can exhaust. They discuss it with heat, with phil- 
osophic impartiality, with ethnological and eugenic in- 
exactitudes, and sometimes with bloodshed; but they 
never wear it out. 

“You see, Miss Harding, there are other reasons against 
it,” Mr. Samson struck in again. “There ’s the general 
feelin’ on the subject and you can’t ignore that. One 
woman mustn’t do what a million other women feel 
to be vile. It ’s makin’ an attack on decency — that ’s 
what it comes to. A woman might feel a call in the 
spirit to marry a monkey. It might suit her all right — 
might be the best thing she could do, so far as a woman 
of that sort was concerned; but it wouldn’t be playin’ 
the game. It wouldn’t be cricket.” 

He shook his spirited white head with a frown. 

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“I see,” said Margaret. “But there ’s one other 
point. I only want to know, you know.” 

“Naturally,” agreed Mr. Samson. “What ’s the 
point?” 

“Well, there are about ten times as many black peo- 
ple as white in this country. What about their sense of 
decency? Doesn’t that suffer a little by this — this 
trades-union of the whites? That woman in Capetown 
has all the whites against her and all the blacks for her 
— I suppose. There ’s a majority in her favor, at any 
rate.” 

“Hold on,” cried Mr. Samson. “You can’t count 
the Kafirs like that, you know. They ’re not in it. 
We ’re talking about white people. The whole point is 
that Kafirs aren’t whites. A white woman belongs to 
her own people and must stand by their way of lookin’ 
at things. If we take Kafir opinion, we ’ll be chuckin’ 
clothes next and goin’ in for polygamy.” 

“Would we?” said Margaret. “I wonder. D’you 
think it will come to that when the Kafirs are all as civ- 
ilized as we are and the color line is gone?” 

“The color line will never go,” replied Mr. Samson, 
solemnly. “You might as well talk of breakin’ down 
the line between men and beasts.” 

“Well, evolution did break it down,” said Margaret. 
“Think, Mr. Samson. There will come a day when we 
shall travel on flying machines, and all have lungs 
like drums. We shall live in cities of glazed brick be- 
side running streams of disinfectant. There will be no 
poverty and no crime and no dirt, and only one language. 
Where will the Kafirs be then? Still in huts on the 
Karoo being kept in their place?” 

“I ’m not a prophet,” said Mr. Samson. “I don’t 
231 


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know where they ’ll be. It won’t bother me when that 
time comes. I ’ll be learning the harp.” 

“There ’ll be a statue in one of those glazed-brick 
cities to the woman in Capetown,” Margaret went on. 

“It ’ll be inscribed in letters of gold — ‘To (whatever 

her name was) : She felt the future in her bones.’ ” 

Mr. Samson blew noisily. “Evolution ’s not in my 
line,” he said. “It ’s all very well to drag in Darwin 
and all that but black and white don’t mix and you can’t 
get away from that.” 

“I should think not, indeed.” Mrs. Jakes corrobo- 
rated him with a shrug. She had found herself in- 
trigued by the glazed-brick cities, and shook them from 
her as she remembered that she was not “friends” with 
their inventor. 

But Margaret was keen on her theory and would not 
abandon it for a fly-blown aphorism. 

“You ’d never have been satisfied with that woman,” 
she said. “Supposing she hadn’t married the Kafir? 
Supposing that being fond of him and believing in him, 
she had bowed down to your terrible decency and not 
married? You ’d still have been down on her for liking 
him, and she ’d have been persecuted if she spoke to him 
or let him be friendly with her. Is n ’t that so ? ” 

Mr. Samson pursed his lips and bristled his white 
mustache up under his nose. 

“Yes,” he said. “That is so. I won’t pretend I ’ve 
got any use for women who go in for Kafirs.” 

“Nobody has.” Mrs. Jakes came in again at the tail 
of his reply with all the confidence of a faithful inter- 
preter. 

Margaret, marking her righteous severity, had an im- 
pulse to stun them both with a full confession. She 
232 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


found in herself an increasing capacity for being irri- 
tated by Mrs. Jakes, and had a vision of her, flattened 
beyond recovery, by the revelation. She repressed the 
impulse because the vision went on to give her a glimpse 
of the tragedy that would close the matter. 

Ford had not yet spoken. He sat beside her, listen- 
ing. Across the room, Dr. Jakes was listening also. 
She put the question to him. 

“What do you think, Dr. Jakes?” she asked. 

“Eh?” He started at the sound of his name and 
put up an uncertain hand to straighten his spectacles. 

“About all this — about the general principle of it?” 
she particularized. 

“Oh, well.” He hesitated and cleared his throat. 
There was a fine clear-cut idea floating somewhere in 
his mind, but he could not bring it into focus with his 
thoughts. 

“It ’s simply that — Kafirs are Kafirs,” he said dully. 
Mrs. Jakes interposed a warm, “Certainly,” and further 
disordered him. He gave her a long and gloomy look 
and tried to go on. “When they are — further ad- 
vanced, that will be the time to — to think about inter- 
marriage, and all that. Now — well, you can see what 
they are.” 

He wiped his forehead nervously with his handker- 
chief, and Ford entered the conversation. 

“Jakes has got it,” he said. “Intermarriage may 
come — perhaps; but at present every marriage of a 
white person with a Kafir means a loss. It ’s a sacrifice 
of a civilized unit. D’ you see, Miss Harding? You ’ve 
got to reckon not only what that woman in Capetown 
does but what she doesn’t do as well. She might have 
been the mother of men and women. Well, now she ’ll 
233 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


bear children to be outcasts. She ought to have waited 
a couple of hundred years.” 

“ Perhaps she was in a hurry,” answered Margaret. 

4 ‘But there ’s the other question — what if she hadn’t 
married ? ’ ’ 

“Oh,” said Ford. “In point of reason and all that, 
she ’d have been right enough. But people are n ’t rea- 
sonable. Look at Samson — and look at me.” 

“You mean — you ’ve ‘no use’ for her?” 

“It ’s prejudice,” he answered. “It ’s anything you 
like. But the plain fact is, I ’d probably admire such 
a woman if I met her in a book ; but as flesh and blood, 
I decline the introduction. Does that shock you?” 

“Margaret smiled rather wryly. “Yes,” she said. 
“It does, rather.” 

He turned towards her, humorous and whimsical, but 
at that moment Dr. Jakes made a movement doorward 
and Mrs. Jakes began her usual brisk fire of small-talk 
to cover his retreat. 

“I only wish there was some way we could get the 
papers regularly — such a lot of things seem to be hap- 
pening just now,” she prattled. “Some of the papers 
have cables from England and they are most interest- 
ing. That Cape Times you lent me, Mr. Samson — it 
had the names of the people at the, Drawing-Room. 
Do you know, I ’ve often been to see the carriages drive 
up, and it ’s just like reading about old friends. There 
was one old lady, rather fat, with a mole on her chin, 
who always went, and once we saw her drinking out of 
a flask in the carriage. My cousin William — William 
Penfold — nicknamed her the Duchess de Grundy, and 
when we asked a policeman about her, it turned out she 
really was a Duchess. Wasn’t that strange?” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

Mr. Samson heard this recital with unusual atten- 
tion. 

“A flask ?” he asked. “Leather-covered thing, big 
as a quart bottle? Fat old girl with an iron-gray mus- 
tache ? ’ ’ 

“Why,” cried Mrs. Jakes. “You ’ve seen her too.” 

Mr. Samson glared around him. “Seen her,” he ex- 
claimed. “Why, ma ’am, once — she would walk with 
the guns, confound her — once I put a charge of shot 
into her. And why I didn’t give her the other barrel 
while I was about it, I ’ve never been able to imagine. 
Seen her, indeed. I ’ve seen her bounce like a bally 
india-rubber ball with a gunful of lead to help her 
along. Used to write to me, she did, whenever a pellet 
came to the surface and dropped out. I should just 
think I had seen her.” 

“Fancy,” said Mrs. Jakes. 

Mr. Samson did not go off forthwith, as his wont was. 
He showed a certain dexterity in contriving to keep 
Margaret in the room with himself till the others had 
gone. Then he closed the door and stood against it, 
smiling paternally but still with gallantry. 

“I wanted just a word with you, if you ’ll allow me,” 
he said, with a hand to the point of his trim mustache. 
He was a beautifully complete thing as he stood with his 
back to the door, groomed to a hair, civilized to the eye- 
brows. He presented a perfected type of the utterly 
conventionalized, kindly and uncharitable gentleman of 
England. 

“Oh, Mr. Samson, this is so sudden,” said Mar- 
garet. 

“What’s that? Oh, you be — ashamed of yourself,” he 
answered. “Tryin’ to fascinate an old buffer like me. 

235 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


But, I say, Miss Harding, I wish you ’d just let me say 
something I ’ve got on my mind — and forgive before- 
hand anything that sounds like preaching. We old 
crocks — we ’ve got nothing to do but worry the young- 
sters, and we have to be indulged — what?” 

“Go ahead,” agreed Margaret. “But if you preach 
at me, after shooting a duchess, — I’ll scream for help. 
What is it ? ” 

“It ’s a small matter,” said Mr. Samson. “I want 
you just to let us go on likin’ and admirin’ you, without 
afterthought or anything to spoil the effect. You’re 
new out here, and of course you don ’t know and could n ’t 
know; you ’re too fresh and too full of sweetness and 
innocence ; but — well, it kind of jars to hear you standin’ 
up for a woman like that woman in Capetown. You 
mean a lot to us, Miss Harding. We have n’t got much 
here, you know; we had to leave what we had and run 
out here for our lives — run like bally rabbits when a 
terrier comes along. It ’ud be a kindness if you 
wouldn’t — you know.” 

There was no mistaking the kindliness with which he 
smiled at her as he spoke. It was another warning, but 
conveyed differently from the others she had received. 
Mr. Samson managed to make his air of pleading for a 
matter of sentiment convincing. 

“You — you ’re awfully kind,” she said. 

‘ 1 Not kind, ’ ’ he replied. “ Oh no ; it is n ’t that. It ’s 
what I said. It ’s us I ’m thinking of. You ’ve no idea 
of what you stand for. You ’re home, and afternoons 
when one meets pretty girls who are all goin’ to marry 
some bally cub, and restaurants full of nice women with 
jolly shoulders, and fields with tailor-made girls runnin’ 
away from cows. You ’re the whole show. But if you 
236 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

start educatin’ us, though we ’re an ignorant lot, we lose 
all that. ’ ’ 

He looked at her with a trace of anxiety. 

“It ’s cheek, I know, puttin’ it to you like this,” he 
added. “But I ’m relyin’ on your being a sportsman, 
Miss Harding.” 

“It isn’t cheek,” Margaret answered. “It ’s awfully 
good of you. I — I see what you mean, and I should be 
sorry if I — well, failed you.” 

He stood aside from the door at once, throwing it open 
as he did so. 

‘ ‘ Sportsman to the bone, ’ ’ he said. 1 1 Bless your heart, 
did n’t I know it. Though I could n ’t have blamed you 
if you ’d kicked at all this pow-wow from a venerable 
ruin old enough to be your grandfather.” 

Hand to mustache, crooked elbow cocked well up, 
brows down over bold eyes, the venerable ruin chal- 
lenged the title he gave himself. Margaret found 
his simple and comely tricks of posture and ex- 
pression touching; he played his little game of pose so 
harmlessly and faithfully. She stopped in front of him 
as she walked to the door. 

“If you ’ll shut your eyes and keep quite still, I ’ll 
give you something,” she offered. 

“Ha!” snorted Mr. Samson zestfully. 

He closed his eyes and stood to attention, smiling. 
The lids of his eyes were flattened and seamed with blue 
veins, and they gave him, as he waited unmoving, some 
of the unreality and remoteness of a corpse. He looked 
like a man who had died suddenly while proposing a 
loyal toast or paying a compliment, who carries his gen- 
ial purpose with him into the dark and leaves only the 
shell of it behind. 


237 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

Margaret put a light hand on his trim gray shoulder 
and rising on tiptoe touched him with her lips between 
the eyes. Then she turned and went out, unhurrying, 
and Mr. Samson still stood to attention with closed eyes 
till the sound of her feet was clear of the stone-flagged 
hall and had passed out to the stoep. 

She did not go at once to the spot where a square stone 
pillar screened Ford’s easel, as her custom was. She 
came to rest at the side of the steps and stood thought- 
fully looking out to the veld, where the brown showed 
hints of gold as the sun went westward. It hung now, 
very great and blinding, above the brim of the earth, and 
bathed her with steep rays that riddled the recesses of the 
stoep with their radiant artillery. To one hand, a road 
came from the horizon and passed to the opposite hori- 
zon on the other hand, linking unseen and unheard-of 
stopping-places across the gulf of that emptiness. 

• ‘ What has all this got to do with me?” was her 
thought, as her eyes traveled over the flat and unprofit- 
able breast of land, whose featurelessness seemed to defy 
her even to fasten it in her memory. She recollected 
Ford’s saying that she was a bird of passage, with all 
this but a stage in her flight from sickness to health. 
Her starting and halting points were far from Karoo; 
she touched it only as the dust that moves upon it when 
a chance wind raises fantastic spirals and drives them 
swaying and zigzagging till they break and are gone. 
Nothing that she did could be permanent here ; her pains 
would be spent in vain. Even the martyrdom that had 
been held up to her for a warning — even that, if she 
accepted it, would be ineffectual, the ‘‘sacrifice of a civ- 
ilized unit.” 

Along the stoep, Ford’s leg protruded from behind the 

238 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

pillar as he sat widely asprawl on his camp-stool; the 
heel of the white canvas shoe was on the flags and the 
toe cocked up energetically. He found things simple 
enough, reflected Margaret; as simple as Mrs. Jakes 
found them. Where knowledge and reason failed him, 
he availed himself frankly of prejudices and dealt hon- 
estly with his instincts. He permitted himself the indul- 
gence of plain dislikings and was not concerned to jus- 
tify or excuse them. It was possible to conceive him 
wrong, irrational, perverse, but never inconsistent or 
embarrassed. In the drawing-room he had spoken 
lightly, but Margaret knew the steadfastness of mind 
that was behind the trivial manner of speech. Well, he 
would have to be told, sooner or later, of the secret she 
shared with the veld. That confession was pressing it- 
self upon her. With Mrs. Jakes and Boy Bailey already 
privy to it, it could not be withheld much longer. She 
stood, gazing at the outstretched leg, and tried to fore- 
see his reception of the news. 

“Well,” said Ford, looking up absently when pres- 
ently she walked down to him. * ‘ Did Samson crush you 
or did you crush him?” 

“It was a draw,” answered Margaret. “He ’sa dear 
old thing, though. And what a guarantee of good faith 
to be able to cap a duchess story like that. Wasn’t it 
good?” 

“Rotten shooting, though,” said Ford. “He 
wouldn’t have admitted he ’d peppered a commoner.” 

“You ’re jealous,” retorted Margaret. “Mr. Sam- 
son ’s quite all right, and I won’t have him sneered at 
after he ’s been paying me compliments.” 

“Once I hit an Honorable with a tennis racket. It 
slipped out of my hand just as I was taking a fearful 
239 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

smack at a high one and hit him like a boomerang. So 
I ’m not as jealous as you might think / 9 

“One can’t throw a tennis racket without hitting an 
Honorable nowadays. That ’s nothing,” said Margaret. 
“And you ’re just an ordinary person, anyhow. Mr. 
Samson, now — he ’s not only a gentleman, but he looks 
like it and sounds like it, and you could tell him with a 
telescope twenty miles off for the real thing. ’ ’ 

“Ye-es.” Ford drew a leisurely thumb across the 
foreground of his picture and surveyed the result with 
his head on one side. “You know,” he went on, knead- 
ing reflectively at the sticky masses of paint, “some of 
that ’s true. He does sound exactly like it. If you 
wanted to know the broad general view of the class that 
he represents, and all the other classes that take a pattern 
from it, you ’d be fairly safe in asking Samson. Those 
dashing men of the world, you know — they ’re all for the 
domestic virtues and loyalty and fair play. If you find 
fault with gambling and drinking and cursing, they say 
you ’ve got the Nonconformist Conscience. But when 
they stand for a principle, they J ve got the consciences 
of Sunday School pupil-teachers. Samson’s ideal of 
England is a nation of virtuous women and honest men, 
large families, Sunday observance, and no damned 
French kickshaws. For that, he ’d go to the stake smil- 
ing.” 

“Well,” said Margaret, “why not?” 

“Oh, I ’m not saying anything against him,” answered 
Ford. “I ’m telling you what he stands for and how 
far he counts when he turns on the oracle.” 

“You mean that Kafir business, of course?” 

“Yes,” said Ford. “That ’s what I mean.” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I gathered/ ’ said Margaret slowly, “that you agreed 
with him about that.” 

He was still at work with* his colors and did not raise 
his head as he answered. 

“Not a bit of it. I don’t agree with him at all. He 
talks absolute drivel as soon as he begins to argue.” 

“But,” began Margaret. 

“I say I don’t agree with him,” continued Ford; 
“but that ’s not to say I don’t feel just the same. As a 
matter of fact I do.” 

“Oh, you ’re too subtle,” said Margaret impatiently. 

“That ’s not subtle,” said Ford imperturbably. “You 
were sounding us all inside there and you got eloquence 
from old Samson and a shot in the dark from Jakes and 
thunder and lightning from Mrs. Jakes. Now, if you 
listen, you ’ll get the real thing from me. As you said, 
I ’m just an ordinary person. Well, the ordinary per- 
son knows all right that a matter of tar-brush in the 
complexion doesn’t make such a mighty difference in 
two human beings. He sees they ’re both bustling along 
to be dead and done with it as soon as possible, and that 
they ’ll turn into just the same kind of earth and take 
their chance of the same immortality or annihilation — 
as the case may be. He sees all right ; he even sees a sort 
of romance and beauty in it, and makes it welcome when 
it doesn’t suggest the real thing too clearly. But all 
that doesn’t prevent him from barring niggers utterly 
in his own concerns. It does n ’t stop his flesh from 
creeping when he reads of the woman in Capetown, and 
imagines her sitting on the Kafir ’s knee. And it does n ’t 
hinder him from looking the other way when he meets 
her in the street. It isn’t reason, I know. It isn’t 
is 241 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


sense. It is n’t human charity. But it is a thing that ’s 
rooted in him like his natural cowardice and his bodily 
appetites. Is that at all clear?” 

Margaret did not answer at once. She seemed to be 
looking at the canvas. 

4 ‘Yes,” she said finally. “It ’s clear enough. But 
tell me — is that you ? I mean, were you describing your 
own feelings about it?” 

“Yes,” he said. 

“You and I are going to quarrel before long,” Mar- 
garet answered. “We ’ll have to. You won’t be able 
to help yourself.” 

“ Oh, ” said Ford. ‘ ‘ Why ’s that ? ’ ’ 

“Because you ’re such an ordinary person,” retorted 
Margaret. 

He lifted his head at the tone of her voice, but further 
talk was arrested by the sight of a man on horseback 
coming across from the road towards them. Both rec- 
ognized Christian du Preez. They saw him at the mo- 
ment that he switched his cantering pony round towards 
the house, and came swiftly over the grass. He had his 
rifle slung upon his back by a sling across the chest, and 
he reined up short immediately below them, so that he 
remained with his face just above the rail of the stoep. 

“Daag,” he said awkwardly. 

“Afternoon,” replied Ford. “Are you painted for 
war, or what, with that gun of yours?” 

The Boer, checking his fretting pony with heel and 
hand, gave him a bewildered look. The dust was thick 
in his beard, as from long traveling, and lay in damp 
streaks in each furrow of his thin face. The faint, acrid 
smell of sweating man and horse lingered about him. 
He moistened his lips before he could speak further. 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“My wife is gone out,” he said, speaking as though 
he restrained many eager words. “I must speak to her 
at once. She is not here — not?” 

“I don’t think so,” said Ford. 

Margaret was more certain. “Mrs. du Preez hasn’t 
been here this afternoon,” she assured the Boer. 
“There ’s nothing wrong, I hope.” 

Christian looked from one to the other as they an- 
swered with quick nervous eyes. 

“No,” he said. “But it is something — I must speak 
to her. She is not here, then?” 

They answered him again, wondering somewhat at his 
strangeness. He tried to smile at them but bit his lip 
instead. 

“Well — he hesitated. 

“I will fetch Mrs. Jakes if you like,” said Margaret. 
“But I ’m quite sure Mrs. du Preez hasn’t been here.” 

“No,” he said forlornly. “Thank you. Good-by, 
Miss Harding.” 

The pony leaped under the spur, and they saw him 
gallop back to the road and across it towards the farm. 

“Queer,” said Ford. “Did you notice how humble 
he was while his eyes looked like murder?” 

But Margaret had been struck by something else. 

“I thought he looked like Mrs. Jakes,” she said, 
“when I answer her back.” 


243 


CHAPTER XIII 


I T was Kamis, the Kafir, ranging upon one of his 
solitary quests, who came upon them in the late 
afternoon, arriving unseen out of the heat-haze and ap- 
pearing before them as incomprehensibly as though he 
had risen out of the ground. 

Mrs. du Preez had groaned and sat down for the 
fourth or fifth time in three miles and Mr. Bailey’s pa- 
tience was running dry. For himself, the trudge 
through the oppression of the sun was not a new experi- 
ence; he was inured to its discomforts and pains by 
many years of use while he had been a pilgrim from door 
to distant door of the charitable and credulous, and he 
had gathered a certain adeptness in the arts of the trek. 
He had set a good lively pace for this journey, partly be- 
cause a single vigorous stage would see them at the rail- 
way line, but also because he sincerely believed in Chris- 
tian du Preez ’s willingness to shoot him, and was 
concerned to be beyond the range of that vengeance. 
Therefore, at this halt, he turned and swore. 

Mrs. du Preez fanned herself feebly with one hand 
while the other still held the little bundle that contained 
her money. 

4 ‘ I can ’t help it, Bailey, ’ ’ she said painfully. 1 1 1 mus ’ 
have a rest. I ’m done.” 

“Done.” He spat. “Bet I could make you walk if 
I started. Are you goin’ to come on?” 

She shook her head slowly, with closed eyes. 

244 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I can’t,” she said. “I mus’ jus’ — have a sit down, 
Bailey. ’ ’ 

Her elaborate hat nodded drunkenly on her head, and 
all the dust of the long road could not make her clothes 
at home in the center of the wide circle of dumb and 
forsaken land in which she sat, surrendered to her weari- 
ness, but never relaxing her hold on her money. Not 
once since their setting out had she loosed her grip on 
that, save when she changed the burden of it from one 
hand to the other. Her faith was in the worth and 
power of that double handful of sovereigns, and she 
would have felt poorer on a desert island by the loss of 
a single one of them. 

“ I ’ve been patient with you,” Boy Bailey said, look- 
ing at her fixedly. “I ’ve been very patient with you. 
But it ’s about time there was an end of this two-steps- 
and-a-squat business. There ’s no knowing what minute 
that husband of yours might come ridin’ up with his 
gun.” 

“I ’ll be — all right — soon,” she said. “Give me a 
half hour, Bailey.” 

“Take your own time,” he replied. “Take all the 
time there is. Only — I ’m goin’ on.” 

She opened her eyes at that and blinked at him in an 
effort to see him through the hot mist that stood before 
them. 

“Goin’ — to leave me?” 

4 ‘ Yes, ’ ’ he said. 4 ‘ What d ’ you think ? ’ ’ 

Her look, her parted lips and all her accusing help- 
lessness were before his eyes; he looked past them and 
shuffled. To the weak man, weakness is horrible. 

“I warned you about cornin’,” he said, seeking the 
support of reasonable words as such men do. “You ’ve 
245 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


got yourself to blame, and I don ’t see why I should stop 
here to be shot by a man that grudged me a bite and a 
bed. It isn’t as if I ’d asked you to come.” 

“I ’ll be better soon,” was all she could say, still hold- 
ing him with that look of a wounded animal, the reproach 
that neither threatens nor defies and is beyond all an- 
swer. 

“Better soon,” he grumbled scornfully, and fidgeted. 
Her hand never left the little bundle. Would she strug- 
gle much, he was thinking. He could take it from her, 
of course, but he did n ’t want her to scream, even in that 
earless solitude. The thought of her screams made him 
uneasy. She might go on crying out even when he had 
torn the bundle from her and the cries would follow at 
his back as he carried it off, and he would know that she 
was still crying when he had passed out of hearing. 

Still — a kick, perhaps. Boy Bailey looked at her 
bowed body and at the toe of his shoe. He began to 
breathe short and to tremble. It was necessary to wait 
a moment and let energy accumulate for the deed. 

“Don’t— go off,” gasped Mrs. du Preez, with her face 
bent over her knees, and Bailey relaxed. The words 
had snapped the tension of his resolve, and it would have 
to be keyed up again. 

“Give me that bundle,” he said hoarsely. “Give it to 
me, or else — ” 

She sat up with an effort and he stopped in the middle 
of his threat. He was pale now and trembling strongly. 
She drew the bundle closer to her defensively. 

“No,” she answered. “I won’t.” 

“Give it here,” he croaked, from a dry throat. 
Come on — God! I’ll — ” 

The moment of resolution had come to him, and for 
246 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


the instant he was fit and strong enough to do murder. 
He plunged forward with his lower lip sucked in and 
his ragged teeth showing in a line above his chin, and 
all his loose and fearful face contorted into a maniac 
rage. The woman fell over sideways with a strident 
cry, her bundle hugged to her breast. Boy Bailey 
gasped and flung back his foot for the swinging kick that 
would save him from the noise of her complainings. 

He kicked, blind to all but the woman on the ground, 
alone with her in a narrow theater of bestial purpose 
and sweating terrors. He neither heard nor saw the 
quick spring of the waiting Kafir, who charged him 
with a shoulder, football fashion, while the kick still 
traveled in the air and pitched him aside to fall brutally 
on his ear and elbow. He tumbled and slid upon the 
dust with the unresisting lifelessness of a sack of flour 
and lay, making noises in his throat and moving his 
head feebly, till the world grew visible again and he 
could see. 

The Kafir stood above Mrs. du Preez, who lay where 
she had thrown herself, and stared up at him with eyes 
in which the understanding was stagnant. 

“Don’t be frightened,” he said. “I know who you 
are. I ’ll take you safely where you want to go.” 

He spoke in tones as matter-of-fact as he could make 
them, for his professional eye told him that the woman 
was at the limit of her endurance and could support 
no further surprises. But he took in the pretentious 
style of her dress with the dust upon it and the fact 
that she was in company with the tramp upon a path 
that led to the railway and wondered darkly. It was 
almost inconceivable, in spite of the situation in which 
he found her, that she could be running away from her 
247 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


husband in favor of the creature who now lay in the 
road, moving his limbs tentatively and watching with 
furtive eyes to see if it was safe to sit up. 

Mrs. du Preez moistened her lips. 4 4 I got nowhere to 
go, now,” she said. 

4 ‘Then you ’d better go home,” said Kamis. “Rest 
a little first — there ’s plenty of time, and it ’ll be cooler 
presently. Then I ’ll take you back.” 

He turned to look over his shabby tweed shoulder at 
Boy Bailey and addressed him curtly. 

“You can go now,” he said. 

Boy Bailey sat up awkwardly, with an expression of 
pain, as though it hurt him to move. He had not yet 
mastered the change in the state of affairs and at- 
tempted to temporize till matters should define them- 
selves. 

“I ’ve got to see first if I can stand,” he said. “It ’s 
all very well, but you can’t slam a man down on his 
funny-bone and then order him to do the goose-step.” 

“Hurry,” said the Kafir. 

Mr. Bailey passed an exploring hand about his 
shoulder. “Ouch!” He winced. “Broken bone,” he 
explained. “You say you ’re a doctor — see for your- 
self. And anyhow, I want a word in private with the 
lady.” 

Kamis took two deliberate steps in his direction 
and — 

“Hey!” yelled Boy Bailey, and scrambled to his 
feet. “What d’you kick me like that for, you black 
swine ? ’ ’ 

He backed before the Kafir, with spread hands in 
agitated protestation. 

“Kickin’ a man when he ’s down,” he cried. “Is 
248 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


that a game to play? All right, all right; I ’m goin’, 
aren’t I? You keep where you are and let me turn 
round. No, you stop first. I ’m not goin’ to he kicked 
again like that if I can help it.” 

Kamis came to a halt. 

“Next time I see you, I ’ll murder you,” he prom- 
ised. “Murder you.” He paused at Mr. Bailey’s 
endeavor to save his dignity with a sneer. “Don’t you 
believe that?” he asked. “Say — don’t you believe I ’ll 
do it?” 

Mr. Bailey’s sneer failed as he looked into the black 
face that confronted him. By degrees the sheer sinis- 
ter power that inhabited it, lighting it up and making 
it imminently terrible with its patent willingness to 
kill, burned its way to his slow intelligence. His pendu- 
lous underlip quivered. 

“Don’t you?” repeated the Kafir, with a motion of 
his shoulders like a shrug. “Don’t you believe I ’ll 
slaughter you like a pig next time I see you? Answer 
— don’t you believe it?” 

“Ye-es,” stammered Boy Bailey. 

The Kafir’s deliberate nod was indescribably mena- 
cing. 

“That ’s right,” he said. “It ’s very true indeed. 
And you remember what I paid you fifty pounds for, 
too. A word about that, Bailey, and I ’ll have you. 
Now go.” 

A hundred paces off, Boy Bailey halted, to get breath 
and ideas, and stood looking back. 

He waited, watching the Kafir bring Mrs. du Preez to 
a condition in which she could stand again and bear the 
view of the backward road coiling forth to the feature- 
less skyline, and thence to further and still featureless 
249 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


skylines, traversing intolerably far vistas that gave no 
sign of a destination. With his returning wits, he 
found himself wondering what arguments the man had 
to induce her to brave her husband. 

As it happened, there was need of none. The woman 
was broken and beyond thought. She was reduced to 
instincts. The homing sense that sets a wounded rock- 
rabbit of the kranzes crawling in agony to die in its 
burrow moved in her dimly ; she could not even summon 
force to wonder at the apparition of the English- 
speaking, helpful Kafir. Under the practised deftness 
of his suggestion and persuasion she rose and put her 
limp arm in his, and they moved away together, follow- 
ing their long shadows that went before them, gliding 
upon the dust. 

4 ‘There they go,” said Mr. Bailey bitterly. “There 
they go. And what about me?” 

He saw that the Kafir propped the exhausted woman 
with his arm and helped her. He was protecting and 
assured, a strength and a shield. Almost unconsciously 
Boy Bailey followed after them. He could not have 
given a reason for doing so; he only knew that he was 
very unwilling to be left alone with his bruises and his 
sense of failure and defeat. In less than a quarter of 
an hour, the veld that had been comfortingly empty 
had become lonely. He went on tiptoe, with long un- 
gainly strides and much precaution to be unheard. 

He followed perhaps for half a mile and then the 
Kafir looked back and saw him. Mr. Bailey stopped 
within speaking distance. 

“I was coming to apologize,” he called. “That ’s 
all. I lost my temper and I want to apologize.” 

The Kafir let Mrs. du Preez sit down and came 
250 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


walking back slowly. When half the distance to Mr. 
Bailey was covered he broke suddenly into a run. For 
some seconds Mr. Bailey abode, his mind racing, and 
then he too turned and ran as he had never run before. 
With fists clenched and head back, he faced the west 
and fled in' leaps, and as he went he emitted small 
squeals and fragments of speech. 

“My mistake/ ’ he would utter, through failing 
breath. “As long as I live, I T1 never — I swear it — 
I swear it. O-o-oh. You ’re very — hard — on me.” 

The Kafir had ceased to run when Mr. Bailey 
turned to flee. He stood and watched him go, un- 
pursued and terrified, with the dust spirting under 
his feet like the smoke of a powder-train. Then he 
went back and aided Mrs. du Preez to rise and together 
they set out again. 

The last of Boy Bailey was a black blot against the 
sky; he was too far off for Kamis to see whether he 
still ran or stood. It merely testified that a degener- 
ate human frame will stand blows and much emotion 
and effort under a hot sun and yet hold safe for fur- 
ther evil the life within it. Man of all animals is the 
most tenacious of his existence; he lives not for food 
but for appetite. What was assured was that the far 
blot that represented Boy Bailey was still avid and still 
unsatisfied. He had not even gratified his last desire 
to apologize. 

The sun dawdled over the final splendid ceremony 
of his setting, drawing out the pomp of departure while 
night waited in the east for his going with pale pre- 
mature stars. The small wind that clears the earth 
of the sun’s leavings of heat sighed about them, and 
produced from each side of their path a faint rustle as 
251 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


though it stirred trees at a little distance. Above 
them the sky began to light up with a luminous pow- 
der of stars, that strained into radiant clearness before 
the west was empty of its last pink stain. They went 
slowly, Mrs. du Preez leaning heavily on Kamis’ arm, 
and still faithfully carrying her bundle. She had not 
spoken since they started. She went w 7 ith her eyes on 
the ground, and unequal steps, till the evening breeze 
touched her and she lifted her face to its gentle re- 
freshment. 

She had to sit down every little while, but she was 
stronger after the setting of the sun, and it was not 
till the night had surrounded them that she spoke. 

“When I saw you first, ” she said suddenly, “the sun 
was in my eyes. And I thought you was — black?” 

“Yes?” said Kamis. “That wasn’t the sun,” he 
said slowly. “I am black.” 

“But — ” she hesitated. “I don’t mean just black,” 
she said vaguely. “I meant— a black man, a nigger.” 

She was peering up at him anxiously, while her 
weight rested in his arm. 

“Well, wouldn’t you have let a nigger help you?” 
asked Kamis quietly. “Isn’t it a nigger’s business, 
when he sees a white woman in trouble, to do what he 
can for her? One of your farm niggers, now — 
would n ’t you have called to him if he ’d been there ? ’ ’ 

“Yes,” fretfully. “But I thought you was a 
nigger.” 

“I ’m a doctor,” said Kamis. “I was at schools and 
colleges in England. The English Government gives 
me hundreds of pounds a year. You ’re quite safe with 
me.” 


252 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“ It was the sun in my eyes,” she murmured uncer- 
tainly. ‘ ‘ I said it was the sun. ’ ’ 

“No, it wasn’t the sun,” he said. “You saw quite 
well. I am a nigger.” 

“How can a doctor be a nigger?” she asked. “Nig- 
gers — why, I know all about niggers. You can’t fool 
me.” 

“I won’t try,” answered Kamis. “But — one thing; 
you ’ve got to get home, have n ’t you ? And you can ’t 
do it alone. You wouldn’t refuse to let a nigger help 
you to walk, would you?” 

“No,” she said wonderingly. “I got to get home. 
I got to.” 

“All right,” said Kamis. “Then look here. Take 
a good look and satisfy yourself. There ’s no sun now 
to get in your eyes.” 

He had halted and drawn his arm from hers. A 
match crackled and its flame showed him to her, illum- 
inating his negro features, and her drawn face, frown- 
ing in an effort to comprehend. He held it till it 
burned to his fingers and then dropped it, and the dark- 
ness fell between them again like a curtain. 

“Now do you see?” he asked. “A Kafir like any 
other, flat nose, big lips, woolly hair, everything — just 
plain Kafir; but a doctor none the less. The Kafir will 
help you to walk and the doctor will see to you if you 
find by and by that you can’t walk hny further. Will 
that satisfy you?” 

She did not answer immediately; she stood as though 
she were still trying to scan the face which the match 
flame had revealed. She was searching for a formula, 
he told himself with a momentary bitterness, which 
253 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


would save her white-skinned dignity and yet permit 
her to avail herself of his services. 

Then her moving hand touched him on the arm, 
gently and unexpectedly, and she answered. 

‘‘You poor devil,’ ’ she said. “You poor devil.” 

Kamis stood quite still, her timid touch upon him, 
the ready pity of her voice in his ears. Mingled with 
his surprise he felt a sense of abasement in the presence 
of this other outcast, so much weaker than he, and he 
could have begged for her pardon for the wrong which 
his thoughts had done her. 

“Thank you,” he said abruptly. “Thank you, Mrs. 
du Preez. It ’s — it ’s kind of you. You shall be very 
safe with me.” 

It was a strange companionship in which they went 
forward through the night, he matching his slow steps 
to her weariness, with her thin arm, bony and rigid 
through the cloth sleeve, weighing within his. She was 
too far spent for talk ; they moved in a silence of effort 
and desperate persistence, with only her harsh and 
painful breathing sounding in reply to the noises which 
the darkness evoked upon the veld. Every little while 
she had to sit down on the ground, and at each such 
occasion she would make her small excuse. 

“I ’ll have to take a spell, now,” she would say apolo- 
getically. “You see, I was walking since before noon.” 

Then her arm would slide from his and she would 
sink to earth at his feet, panting painfully, with her 
head bowed on her bosom and her big hat roofing her 
over. Thus she would remain motionless for a space 
till her breath came more easily, and then the hat 
would tilt up again. 


254 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I could move on a bit, now, if yon ’d give me a 
hand up.” 

Her courage was a thing he wondered at. Again 
and again, as the hours spun themselves out, she rose 
to her feet, groped for his sustaining arm, with her 
face a pallid disk against the shadow of her hat, and 
faced the cruel miles. Her feet, in her smart town 
boots, tormented her without ceasing; her strength was 
drained from her like blood from an opened vein; and 
the slowness of their progress protracted the dreary 
horror of the road that remained to be covered. At 
times she seemed to talk to herself in whispers be- 
tween sobbing breaths, and his ear caught hints of 
words shaped laboriously, but nothing that had mean- 
ing. But she uttered no complaint. 

At one point where she rested rather longer than 
usual, he tried to find out what she expected at the 
journey’s end. 

* 4 Have you thought what you ’ll say,” he asked, 
‘ ‘ when you get home ? ’ ’ 

She raised her head slowly. 

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I — I got to take my 
gruel, I suppose. Whatever it is, I got to take it. 
It ’s up to me.” 

It was the sum of her wisdom; those free-lances of 
their sex add it early into the conclusion that saves 
them the futile effort of evading payment for the 
fruit they snatch when the world is not looking. After 
the fun, the adventure, the thrill, comes the gruel, and 
they have to take it. It is up to them. By the short 
cut of experience, they reach thus the end and desti- 
nation of a severe morality. 

255 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“He can’t shut you out, at any rate,” said Kamis, 
half-aloud. 

“Can’t he?” she said. “Can’t he, though! Can’t 
stand there feelin’ noble and righteous and point to the 
veld and shut the door with a big slam? You don’t 
know him.” 

She rose again presently, clicking her tongue be- 
tween her teeth at the anguish of her swollen and 
abraded feet. 

“The Boers got sense,” she said. “A person ’s a 
fool to go on foot.” 

It was the only reference she made to her pain and 
weariness. 

It was long past midnight when they came at last 
past the sheds behind the farmhouse and saw that there 
was yet a light in the kitchen. The window shone 
broad and yellow in the vague bulk of the house, and 
as they lifted their faces towards it, a shadow moved 
across it, grotesque and abrupt after the manner of 
shadows, which seem to have learned from men how to 
mock their makers. 

“That ’s Christian,” said Mrs. du Preez, whispering 
harshly. 

“Are you afraid?” asked Kamis. “Will you sit 
here while I go and speak to him first ? ’ ’ 

“No,” she replied. “No use. This is where I get 
what’s cornin’ to me. I wish I wasn’t so done up, 
though. If he knew, I believe p’r’aps he ’d let me off 
till the morning. But he doesn’t know, and it 
wouldn’t be him if he did.” 

“Better let me speak to him first,” urged Kamis. 
“I could tell him — ” 

“No,” she said again. “No use dodging it. We ’ll 

256 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


go to the back door; I ’d rather have him shut that on 
me than the front.” 

Near the door she drew her arm away from the 
Kafir’s and left him standing to one side, while she 
approached and knocked upon it with the back of her 
hand. She meant to eat the dreaded gruel alone. 

Silence succeeded upon her knocking, and then de- 
liberate footsteps within that came towards the door. 
A pair of bolts were thrust back, crashing in their 
sockets. Mrs. du Preez gathered her sparse energies 
and stood upright as the door opened and the figure of 
her husband appeared, tall and black against the light 
inside which leaked past him and spilt itself about her 
feet. For some moments they stood facing each other, 
and neither spoke. 

There was drama in the atmosphere. The Kafir 
standing without its scope, watched absorbedly. 

“Christian,” said Mrs. du Preez, at length; “it ’s 
me.” 

“Yes.” The Boer’s deep voice was grave. “Where 
have you been ? ’ ’ 

She lifted her shoulders in a faint hopeless shrug. 

“I ran away,” she said. “Like I said I would. But 
I was n ’t up to it. ’ ’ 

“You ran away,” he repeated slowly. “With that 
Bailey?” 

“Yes, Christian. But — ’ ’ 

Christian caught sight of the dark figure of the Kafir 
and started sharply. 

“Is that him there?” he cried. “Is that Bailey?” 

“No, no,” she answered eagerly. “That’s — that’s 
a Kafir, Christian ; he helped me to get back. He came 
up when I was too tired to go any further, and Bailey 
17 257 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


was starting to kick me to get my money away from 
me — I ’ve got it here, Christian, all safe — an’ he 
knocked Bailey over and chased him off. If it hadn’t 
ha’ been for him — ” 

‘‘What?” Christian interrupted strongly. “What 
did yon say? Bailey was going to — kick yon? You 
was too tired to walk and he was going to kick 
you ? ’ ’ 

“Yes, Christian. And if it hadn’t ha’ been for this 
Kafir, he would ha’ done. I was sitting down, you see, 
and he got mad with me and wanted me to hand him 
over the money. So when I screamed — what did you 
say, Christian?” 

“I swore,” answered the Boer. 

“Oh,” exclaimed Mrs. du Preez, as though she 
apologized for interrupting. “And then the Kafir 
came up. If it was n’t for him, Christian, I ’d — I ’d ha’ 
had to die out of doors. I could never have managed 
to get back by myself.” 

The effort merely to stand upright taxed her 
sorely, but she went on doggedly to praise the Kafir 
and to try in her confused and inadequate tongue to 
convey to the Boer that this Kafir was not as other 
Kafirs. Her small voice, toneless and desperate, beat 
on pertinaciously. 

“He ’s a doctor, Christian,” she concluded. “He ’s 
been educated an’ all that, an’ he speaks English like a 
gentleman. And he ’s been a white man to me.” 

“Yes,” said the Boer. His mind was stuck fast 
upon one point of her story. “Yes. But — you said 
Bailey was going to kick you — out there all alone by 
yourselves in the veld ? ’ ’ 

It daunted him; his intelligence shrank from the 
258 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

picture of that brutality unleashed under the staring 
skies. 

“Yes, Christian,” answered Mrs. du Preez submis- 
sively. 

“Here — come in,” he bade abruptly, and stood aside 
to make room for her to pass. “Come in. Come in.” 

It was a couple of seconds before she fully compre- 
hended. She made a small moaning sound and began 
to totter. The Boer took her by the arm. 

“Wait,” he said curtly, over her head, to the Kafir, 
and led her within. 

Kamis waited, leaning against the wall of the house. 
He had brought his task to an end and the finish had 
arranged itself fortunately; it had been worthy of his 
pains. The Boer had been startled from his balance; 
he had seen that nothing he could do would bear an 
equality with Boy Bailey’s natural impulses; pardon 
and generosity were the only course left open to him. 
The work was complete and pleasing; and now he had 
leisure to feel how weary he was. He shut his eyes 
with an exhausted man’s content at the relaxation of 
effort, and opened them again to find the Boer had 
returned and was standing in the doorway. He started 
upright, amazed to find that sleep had trapped him 
while he leaned and was aware that the Boer made a 
sudden and indistinct movement. Something heavy 
struck the ground at his feet. 

He looked down at it where it lay, white and 
rounded, and recognized Mrs. du Preez ’s bundle, for 
which Boy Bailey had been ready to kick her into 
dumbness. Without addressing a word to him, the 
Boer had tossed him that double handful of money. 

It took him a moment to realize what had taken place. 

259 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


‘ ‘What ’s this for?” he demanded then, possessed by 
a sudden anger that forgot he spoke from the mouth 
of a negro to ears of a white man. 

“It is true you speak English, then?” said the Boer. 
“That is money — about a hundred pounds. It is for 
you. Pick it up.” 

“Pick it up yourself,” retorted the Kafir. “I don’t 
want your money.” 

“Eh?” The Boer did not understand in the least. 
“It is for you,” he repeated. “A hundred sovereigns, 
because you have been good, very good, to the Yrouw 
du Preez. It is in that bundle.” 

The Kafir turned on his heel. “Take care of your 
wife,” he said shortly. “If you worry her now, 
she ’ll be ill. Good night.” 

“Here,” cried the Boer, as Kamis walked away. 
“Here, boy, wait. Come back.” 

Kamis halted. “I ’ve plenty of money,” he an- 
swered. “I ’m not Boy Bailey, you know.” 

“Come here,” called the Boer. 

Kamis did not move, so he stepped down and went 
forward himself. The Kafir’s last word stuck in his 
thought. 

“No,” he agreed. “But who are you? Man, why 
don’t you take the money?” 

“If I were a Boer, I should take it,” answered 
Kamis. “I ’d pick it up from a dunghill, wouldn’t I? 
But, then, you see, I ’m not a Boer. I ’m a Kafir. ’ ’ 

“What do you want, then?” demanded Christian. 

“Oh, nothing that you can give,” was the retort. 

“Well — but you must have something,” urged 
Christian. “You — you have saved my wife.” 

260 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“And you haven’t even said ‘thank you,’ ” replied 
the Kafir. 

“I threw you the money,” protested Christian. “It 
is a hundred pounds. But — well — you have been 
good and I thank you.” 

The Kafir laughed. He knew the mere words 
created an epoch, for Boers do not thank Kafirs. 
They pay them, but no more. Strange how a matter 
of darkness abrogates a difference of color. It would 
never have happened in the daytime. 

“You ’re satisfied, then?” he inquired. 

“Me?” The Boer was puzzled. “You will take the 
money now ? ’ ’ 

“No, thanks. I ’m too — oh, much too tired and 
hungry to carry it. You see, I brought your wife a 
long way. ’ ’ 

“Yes,” said Christian. “She said so — a very long 
way. I will wake the boys [the Kafirs of the house- 
hold]. They will find you a place to sleep and I will 
make them bring you some food.” 

“No, thanks,” said the Kafir again. “I don’t 
speak their language. You — you haven’t a man who 
speaks English, I suppose?” 

“No,” said Christian. “You want — yes, I see. 
But — you ’d better take the money.” 

“I don’t want it.” 

“But take it,” urged the Boer. “A hundred 
pounds — it is much. Perhaps it is more; I have not 
counted it. If it is less, I will give the rest, to make 
a hundred pounds. You will take it — not?” 

“No.” The answer was definite. “No — I won’t 
take it, I tell you. ’ ’ 


261 


FL'OWER O’ THE PEACH 

“Then — ” Christian half-turned towards the 
house, with a heaviness in his movements which had 
not been noticeable before. “Come in and eat,” he 
bade gloomily. “ Gott verdam — come and eat.” 

The Kafir checked another laugh. “With pleas- 
ure, ’ ’ he said, and followed at the Boer ’s back. 

The Boer stooped to pick up the bundle of money 
where it lay on the earth and led the way without 
looking round to the kitchen where he had left his 
wife. The Kafir paused in the kitchen door, looking in, 
acutely alive to the delicacy of a situation in which he 
figured, under the Boer’s eye, as part of the company 
which included the Boer’s wife. He waited to see how 
Christian would adjust matters. 

The table was spread with the materials of supper. 
Mrs. du Preez had a chair by it, and now leaned over 
it, with her head resting on her arms, to make room 
for which plates and cups were disordered. Her 
flowery hat was still on her head; she had not com- 
manded the energy necessary to withdraw the long 
pins that held it and take it off. In her dust-caked 
best clothes, she sprawled among the food and slept, 
and the paraffin lamp on the wall shed its uncharitable 
glare on her unconscious back. 

Christian dumped the heavy little bundle on the 
table beside her and she moved and muttered. He 
called her by name. With a sigh she dragged her heavy 
head up and her black-rimmed tragic eyes opened to 
them in an agony of weariness. They rested on the 
waiting Kafir on the doorway. 

“You’ve brought him in?” she said. “Christian, 
I hoped you would.” 


262 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“He is going to eat with me,” said Christian, with 
eyes that evaded hers. 

“Yes,” she said dully. 

“And you go to bed,” he urged, with an effort to 
seem natural. “You — you ’re too sleepy; you go to 
bed now. I ’ll be up soon. ’ ’ 

“But, Christian,” she protested, while she wrestled 
with the need for slumber that possessed her ; “ I got to 
speak to you. There — there ’s something I want to say 
to you first about — about — ” 

“No.” His hand rested on her shoulder. “It ’s all 
right. There ’s nothing to say; I don’t want to hear 
anything. It ’s all right now ; you go on up to bed. ’ ’ 

She rose obediently, but with an effort, and her hands 
moved blindly in front of her as she made for the 
door, as though she feared to fall. 

“Good night, Christian,” she quavered. “You ’re 
awful good. An’ good nigh};, you” — to the Kafir. 
“You been a white man to me.” 

“Good night,” replied Kamis, and made way for her 
carefully. 

The queer little scene was sufficiently clear to him. 
He understood it entirely. The Boer, face to face with 
an emergency for which his experience and his training 
prescribed no treatment, could stoop to sit at meat 
with a Kafir, but he could not suffer his wife to share 
that descent. The white woman must be preserved at 
any cost in her aloofness, her sanctity, none the less 
strong for being artificial, from contact and communion 
with a black man. Better anything than that. 

“Sit down,” bade Christian. “Take one of those 
cups, and I will bring you coffee.” 

263 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

1 1 Thank you,” replied the Kafir, and obeyed. 

The paraffin lamp shed its unwinking light on a 
scene that challenged irresponsible fancy with the 
reality of crazy fact. The Boer’s consciousness of the 
portentous character of the event governed him 
strongly ; there was majesty in his bearing as he brought 
the coffee pot from the fire and stood at the side of 
the seated Kafir and poured him a cupful. It was done 
with the high sense of ceremony, the magnificent 
humility, of a Pope washing the immaculate feet of 
highly sanitary and disinfected beggars. 

“ There is mutton,” he said, pointing; “or I have 
sardines. Shall I fetch a tin?” 

“I will have mutton, thanks,” replied Kamis, with 
an equal formality, and drew the dish towards him. 

The Boer seated himself at the opposite side of the 
table. The compact, as he understood it, required that 
he should eat also. He cut himself meat and bread 
very precisely, doubtfully aware that he was rather 
hungry. This, he felt vaguely, stained a situation 
where all should have been, formal and symbolic. He 
ate slowly, with a dim, religious appetite. 

Kamis might have found the meal more amusing if he 
had been less weary. An idea that he would insist 
upon conversation visited him, but he dismissed it; he 
was really too tired to assault the heavy solemnity which 
faced him across the table. It would yield to no casual 
advances ; he would have to exert himself, to be 
specious and dexterous, to waylay the man’s interest. 

He pushed his unfinished food from him. 

“I will go home, now,” he said. 

“You have had enough?” questioned the Boer. 

“Thank you,” said Kamis, and rose. 

264 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

The Boer rose, too, very tall and aloof. His hand 
touched the money which still lay on the table. 

“You will take this with you?” he questioned. 
“No?” as the Kafir shook his head. “You are sure? 
You will not have it? Nor anything else?” 

“I have had all I want,” replied Kamis, taking up 
his battered hat. “You ’ve done everything, and more 
than I thought you would.” 

The Boer was insistent. 

“I want you to be — satisfied,” he said, still standing 
in the same place. Kamis found his lofty, still face 
rather impressive. It had a certain high austerity. 

“You must say if you want anything more,” he 
went on, with a grave persistence. “All you want you 
shall have — till you are satisfied.” 

(“Can’t rest under an obligation to me,” thought 
Kamis). 

“I ’m quite satisfied,” he replied. “You don’t owe 
me anything, if that ’s what ’s worrying you. I ’m 
paid in full.” 

“In full,” repeated the Boer. “You are paid in 
full?” 

“Yes.” 

“Very well, then. And now you shall go.” 

He went before and stood at the side of the door 
while Kamis went forth, ready to bolt it at his back. 

“Tell me,” he said, as the Kafir stepped over the 
threshold. “Who are you?” 

The other turned. “My name is Kamis,” he re- 
plied. 

“Kamis?” The Boer leaned forward, trying to 
peer at him. “You said — Kamis? You are the little 
Kafir that the General Lascelles took when — ” 

265 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

“Yes,” said the Kafir. 

The Boer did not answer at once. He hung in the 
doorway, staring. 

“I saw them hang your father,” he said at last, 
very slowly. 

“Did you?” said Kamis. “Good night.” 

“Good night,” replied the Boer when he was some 
paces distant and closed the door carefully. 

The noise of its bolts being shot home was the last 
sound the Kafir heard from the house. The wind that 
comes before the dawn touched him and he shivered. 
He turned up the collar of his coat and set off walking 
as briskly as his fatigue would allow. 


266 


CHAPTER XIYi 



I HE drawing-room of the Sanatorium was availa- 


ble until tea-time for the practice of correspond- 
ence. It offered for this purpose a small table with 
the complexion of mahogany and a leather top, upon 
which reposed an inkstand containing three pots, 
marked respectively in plain letters, “ black / ’ “red,” 
and “copying,” and a number of ancient pens. When 
a new arrival had overcome his wonder and consterna- 
tion at the various features of the establishment, he 
usually signalized his acceptance of what lay before 
him by writing to Capetown for a fountain-pen. As 
old inhabitants of the Cape reveal themselves to the 
expert eye by carrying their tobacco loose in a side 
pocket of their coats, so the patient who had conceded 
Dr. Jakes’ claims to indulgence was to be distinguished 
by the possession of a pen that made him independent 
of the establishment’s supply and frequently by stains 
of ink upon his waistcoat in the region of the left- 
hand upper pocket, where custom has decided a man 
shall carry his fountain-pen. 

Margaret had brought her unanswered letters to this 
privacy and her fountain-pen was busy in the undis- 
turbed interval following the celebration of lunch. 
Hers was the common task of the exile in South Africa, 
to improvize laboriously letters to people at home who 
had plenty to see and do and no need of the post 
to inject spice into their . varied lives. There was 


267 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


nothing to write about, nothing to relate; the heat 
of the sun, the emptiness of the veld, the grin of Fat 
Mary — each of her letters played over these worn 
themes. Yet unless they were written and sent, the 
indifferent folk to whom they were addressed would 
not write to her, and the weekly mail, with its excite- 
ments and its reminders, would fail her. No dweller 
in lands where the double knock of the postman comes 
many times in the day can know the thrill of the 
weekly mail, discharged from the steamship in Cape- 
town and heralded in its progress up the line by tele- 
grams that announce to the little dorps along the rail- 
way the hour of its coming. They have not waited 
with a patient, preoccupied throng in the lobby of 
the post-office where the numbered boxes are, and heard 
beyond the wooden partition the slam of the bags 
and the shuffle of the sorters, talking at their work 
about things remote from the mail. The Kafir mail- 
runners, with their skinny naked legs and their 
handfuls of smooth sticks know how those letters are 
awaited in the hamlets and farms far remote from the 
line, by sun-dried, tobacco-flavored men who are up 
before the dawn to receive them, by others whose 
letters are addressed to names they are not called by, 
and by Mrs. Jakes, full-dressed and already a little 
tired two hours before breakfast. All those letters are 
paid for by screeds that suck dry the brains of their 
writers, desperately searching over the chewed ends 
of penholders for suggestions on barren ground. 

There was one letter which Margaret had set herself 
to compose that had a different purpose. There were 
not lacking signs that her position in Dr. Jakes’ house- 
hold would sooner or later become impossible, and it 
268 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


was desirable to clear the road for a retreat when 
no other road would be open to her. It was not only 
that Mrs. Jakes burned to be rid of her and had taken 
of late to dim hints of her desire in this respect, for 
Margaret was prepared, if she were forced to it, to 
find Mrs. Jakes’ enmity amusing and treat it in that 
light. Such a course, she judged would paralyze Mrs. 
Jakes; in the face of laughter, the little woman was 
impotent. But there was also the prospect, daily 
growing nearer and more threatening, of an exposure 
which would show her ruthlessly forth as the friend 
and confidante of the Kafir, Kamis, the woman for 
whom Ford and Mr. Samson, had, in their own 
phrase, “no use.” The hour when that exposure 
should be made loomed darkly ahead; nothing could 
avert its sinister advance upon her, nor lighten it of 
its quality of doom. She no longer invited her secret 
to make itself known. By degrees the warnings of 
Kamis, the threats of Boy Bailey, the malice of Mrs. 
Jakes, had struck their roots in her consciousness, 
and she was becoming acclimatized to the South- 
African spirit which threatens with vague penalties, 
not the less real for being vague, such transgressors 
as she of its one iron rule of life and conduct. When 
it should come upon her, she decided, she would sum- 
mon her strength to accept it, and confront it serenely, 
in the manner of good breeding. But when that was 
done, she would have to go. 

She was writing therefore to the legal uncle of 
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, who controlled her affairs and 
manifested himself with sprightly letters and punctual 
cheques. He was an opinionative uncle, like most men 
who jest along the established lines of humor, but 
269 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


amenable to a reasonable snbmissiveness on the part 
of his ward and niece. He liked to be inflexible — good- 
naturedly inflexible, like an Olympian who condescends 
to earth, but he could be counted upon to repay an op- 
portunity for a display of his inflexibility by liberal 
indulgence upon other points. Therefore Margaret, 
after consideration, commenced the serious part of her 
epistle to the heathen with a suggestion in regard to in- 
vestments which she knew would rouse him. Then, in a 
following paragraph: 

I am better than I was when I came out, but not 
better than I was a month ago, and I don’t think I 
am improving as rapidly as Dr. David hoped. It may 
be that I am a little too far to the East of the Karoo. 
Was it you or somebody else who advised me to keep 
to the West? 

“That ’ll help to fetch him,” murmured Margaret, as 
she wrote the last words. 

Perhaps, later on, if Dr. Jakes thinks well of it, I 
might move to a place I hear of over in the West. I ’m 
letting you know now in plenty of time; but I don’t 
want you to think there is anything seriously wrong. 
Please don’t be at all anxious. 

“Now something fluffy,” pondered Margaret. “If I 
get it right, he ’ll order me to go. ’ ’ 

What makes me hesitate, she wrote, is the trouble 
it will cost me to move from here. Would you please 
show this letter to Dr. David and ask his opinion ? 

“That ’ll do the trick,” she decided unscrupulously. 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Dr. David will see there ’s something in it and he ’ll 
back me np. And then, when the row comes, they shall 
each have a cut at me, — Mrs. Jakes and Fat Mary and 
all — they shall each have their chance to draw blood, 
and then I ’ll go.” 

While she wrote, there had been the sound of footsteps 
on the stone floor of the hall outside the room, but she 
had been too busy to note them. Otherwise, she would 
quickly have marked an unfamiliar foot among them. 
They were reduced to that at the Sanatorium ; they knew 
every foot that sounded on its floors and a strange one 
fetched them running to look from doors. But Mar- 
garet’s occupation had robbed her of that mild exhilara- 
tion, and she looked up all unsuspiciously as Mrs. Jakes 
pushed open the door of the drawing-room, entered and 
closed it carefully behind her. 

She came a couple of paces into the room and halted, 
looking at the girl in a manner that recalled to Mar- 
garet that fantastic night when she had come with a 
candle to seek aid for Dr. Jakes. Though she had not 
now her little worried smile, she wore the same bewil- 
dered and embarrassed aspect, as of a purpose crossed 
and complicated by considerations and doubts. 

“Are you looking for me, Mrs. Jakes?” asked Mar- 
garet, when she had waited in vain for her to speak. 

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Jakes, in a hushed voice, and re- 
mained where she stood. 

Again Margaret waited in vain for her to speak. 

“I ’m rather busy just now,” she said. “What is 
it you want with me, please?” 

Mrs. Jakes looked to see that the door was closed be- 
fore she answered. 

“It isn’t me,” she said then. “We — we don’t get 

271 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


on very well, Miss Harding; but this isn’t my doing. 
I ’ve never whispered a word to a soul. I have n ’t, in- 
deed, if I never speak another word.” 

Margaret stared at her, perceiving suddenly that the 
small bleak woman was all a-thrill with some nervous 
tension. Her own nerves quivered in response to it. 

“What is it?” she demanded. “What has hap- 
pened?” 

“It ’s the police,” breathed Mrs. Jakes. She gave 
the word the accent in which she felt it. 4 1 The police, ’ ’ 
she said, with a stricken sense of all that police stand 
for, of which unbearable and public shame is chief. 
She was trembling, and her small hands, with their 
rough red knuckles like raw scars upon them, were pick- 
ing feverishly at her loose black skirt. 

Margaret’s heart beat the more quickly at the mere 
tone of her whisper, fraught with dim fears; but the 
words conveyed nothing to her. If anything, they re- 
lieved her. In the hinterland of her consciousness the 
forward-cast shadow of that impending hour was per- 
petually dark; but the police could have no concern in 
that. 

“Oh, do please talk plainly,” she said irritably. 
“What exactly do you want to tell me? And what 
have I got to do with the police?” 

The stimulus of her impatient tones was what was 
needed to restore Mrs. Jakes to coherence. She stared 
at the girl with a sort of stupefaction. 

“What have you got to do with it,” she repeated. 
“Why — it ’s all about you. Somebody ’s told about you 
and that Kafir — about you knowing him and all about 
him, and now Mr. Van Zyl is in the doctor’s study. 
He ’s come to inquire about it.” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Oh,” said Margaret slowly. 

It had struck then, the bitter hour of revelation; it 
had crept upon her out of an ambush of circumstance 
when she least expected it, and the reckoning was due. 
There was to be no time allowed her in which to build 
up her courage; even her retreat must be over strange 
roads. Before the gong went to gather the occupants 
of the house for tea, the stroke would have fallen, and 
her place in the minds of her fellows would be with Dr. 
Jakes on the hearth-rug, an outcast from their circle. 
Unless, indeed, Dr. Jakes should also decline her com- 
pany, as seemed likely. 

It was the image in her mind of a scornful and su- 
perior Jakes that excited the smile with which she looked 
up at Jakes’ frightened wife. 

“So long as he doesn’t bother me, he can inquire as 
much as he likes,” she said. 

Mrs. Jakes did not understand. “It ’s you he ’s go- 
ing to inquire of,” she said. “I suppose, of course — 
I suppose you ’ll tell him about — about that night?” 

“I shan’t tell him anything,” replied Margaret. 
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid, Mrs. Jakes. I ’m not go- 
ing to take this opportunity of punishing you for all 
your unpleasantness. I shall simply refuse to answer 
any questions at all.” 

“You can’t do that.” Mrs. Jakes showed her relief 
plainly in her face and in the relaxation of her attitude. 
She had forgotten one of the first rules of her manner 
of warfare, which is to doubt the enemy’s word. But 
in spite of a reluctant gratitude for the contemptuous 
mercy accorded to her, she felt dully resentful at this 
high attitude of Margaret’s towards the terrors of the 

police. 

18 


273 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


4 4 You can’t do that,” she said. “He ’s got a right 
to know — and he ’s a sub-inspector. He ’ll insist — he ’ll 
make you tell — ” 

“I think not,” said Margaret quietly. 

“But he ’s — ” 

Mrs. Jakes broke off sharply as a hand without turned 
the handle of the door and pushed it open. Ford ap- 
peared, and paused at the sight of them in conversa- 
tion. 

“Hallo,” he said. “Am I interrupting?” 

Mrs. Jakes hesitated, but Margaret answered with 
decision. 

“Not at all,” she said. “Come in, please.” 

It occurred to her that the blow would be swifter if 
Ford himself were present when it fell and there were 
no muddle of explanations to drag it out. 

Ford entered reluctantly, scenting a quarrel between 
the two and suspicious of Margaret’s intentions in de- 
siring his presence. 

“There ’s a horse and orderly by the steps,” he said. 
“Is Van Zyl somewhere about? That ’s why I came 
in, to see if he was here.” 

“He — he is in the study,” answered Mrs. Jakes, in 
extreme discomfort. She turned to Margaret. * * If 
you will come now, I will take you to him.” 

Ford turned, surprised. 

“What for?” asked Margaret. 

“He — sent for you.” Mrs. Jakes did not understand 
the question ; she only perceived dimly that some quality 
in the situation was changed and that she no longer 
counted in it. 

“But what the dickens did he do that for?” asked 
Ford. 


274 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“We ’ll see,” said Margaret, forestalling Mrs. Jakes’ 
bewildered reply. “Please tell him, Mrs. Jakes, that 
I am here and can spare him a few minutes at once.” 

“Yes,” acquiesced Mrs. Jakes, helplessly, and de- 
parted. 

Ford came lounging across the room to Margaret. 

“What’s up?” he inquired. “You haven’t been 
murdering somebody and not letting me help?” 

Margaret shook her head. She was standing guard 
over her composure and could not afford to jest. 

“Sit down over there,” she bade him, motioning him 
towards the couch at the other side of the wide room. 
“And don’t go away, even if he asks you to. Then 
you ’ll hear all about it.” 

He wondered but obeyed slowly, leaning back against 
the end of the couch with one long leg lying up on the 
cushions. 

“If he talks in the tone of his message to you,” 
he said meditatively, “I shall be for punching his 
head.” 

Sub-Inspector Yan Zyl had had the use of a clothes- 
brush before expressing his desire to see Margaret; it 
was a tribute he paid to his high official mission. He 
had cleared himself and his accoutrement of dust and 
the stain of his journey; and it was with the enhanced 
impressiveness of spick-and-span cleanliness that he pre- 
sented himself in the drawing-room, pausing in the 
doorway with his spurred heels together to lift his hand 
in a precise and machine-like salute. At his back, Mrs. 
Jakes’ unpretentious black made a relief for his rigid 
correctitude of attire and pose, and the pallid agitation 
of her countenance, peering in fearful curiosity to one 
side of him, heightened his military stolidity. His 
275 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


stone-blue eyes rested on Ford’s recumbence with a 
shadow of surprise. 

“ Afternoon, Ford,” he said curtly. ‘‘You ’ll excuse 
me, but I ’ve a word or two to say to Miss Harding.” 

“Afternoon, Van Zyl,” replied Ford, not moving. 
“Miss Harding asked me to stay, so don’t mind 
me.” 

Van Zyl looked at him inexpressively. “I ’m on 
duty,” he said. “Sorry, but I wish you ’d go. My 
business is with Miss Harding.” 

“Fire away,” replied Ford. “I shan’t say a word 
unless Miss Harding wishes it.” 

Margaret moved in her chair. 

“You will say what you please,” she said. “Don’t 
regard me at all, Mr. Ford. Now — what can I do for 
you, Mr. Van Zyl?” 

Van Zyl finished his scrutiny of Ford and turned to 
her. 

“I sent to ask you to see me in the other room, Miss 
Harding, because I thought you would prefer me to 
speak to you in private,” he said, with his wooden pre- 
ciseness of manner. “That was why. Sorry if it of- 
fended you. However — ” 

He stood aside and held the door while Mrs. Jakes 
entered, and closed it behind her. Stalking imperturb- 
ably, he placed a chair for her and drew one out for 
himself, depositing his badged “smasher” hat on the 
ground beside it. Seated, he drew from his smoothly 
immaculate tunic a large note-book and snapped its elas- 
tic band open and laid it on his knee. Ford, from 
his place on the couch, watched these preparations with 
gentle interest. 

Van Zyl looked up at Margaret with a pencil in his 

276 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


fingers. His pale, uncommunicative eyes fastened on 
her with an unemotional assurance in their gaze. 

“First,” he said; “where were you, Miss Harding, 
on the afternoon of the -th ? ’ ’ 

He mentioned a date to which Margaret’s mind ran 
hack nimbly. It was the day on which Boy Bailey had 
made terms from the top of the dam wall, the day on 
which the Kafir had kissed her hand, nearly two weeks 
before. 

She had herself sufficiently in hand, and returned 
his gaze with a faint smiling tranquillity that told him 
nothing. 

“I have no information to give you, Mr. Yan Zyl,” 
she replied evenly. “It is quite useless to ask me any 
questions; I shan’t answer them.” 

He was not disturbed. “Sorry,” he said, “but I ’m 
afraid you must. I hope you ’ll remember that I have 
my duty to do, Miss Harding.” 

“Must, eh?” 

That was Ford, thoughtfully, from the couch. Yan 
Zyl looked in his direction sharply with a brief frown, 
but let it pass. 

“It ’s no use, Mr. Yan Zyl,” said Margaret. “I 
simply am not going to answer any questions, and your 
duty has nothing to do with me. So if there is nothing 
else that you wish to say to me, your business is fin- 
ished.” 

“No,” he said; “it isn’t finished yet, Miss Harding. 
You refuse to say where you were on that afternoon?” 

Margaret smiled slowly and he made a quick note 
in his book. 

“I ought to say, perhaps,” he went on, looking up 
when he had finished writing, “that the information I 
277 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


am asking for relates to a — a person, who is wanted by 
the police on a charge of sedition and incitement to 
commit a breach of the peace. You were seen on the 
afternoon in question in the company of that — person, 
Miss Harding; and I believe — I believe you can help us 
to lay hands on him.” 

“Is it Samson ?” inquired Ford, raising his head. 
“I ’ve always had my suspicions of Samson.’’ 

“Oh, Mr. Ford,” exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, pained. 

“It ’s not Mr. Samson,” said the sub-inspector 
calmly; “and it is not any business of yours, Ford.” 

“Oh, yes; it is,” answered Ford. “Because if it 
isn’t Samson it must be me — unless it ’s Jakes. You 
seem to think we see a good deal of company here, Van 
Zyl.” 

“I don’t think anything at all,” retorted the sub- 
inspector stiffly; “and I ’ve nothing to say to you. My 
business is with Miss Harding, and you won’t help her 
by making a nuisance of yourself. ’ ’ 

“Eh?” Ford sat up suddenly. “What ’s that — 
won’t help her? Are you trying to frighten Miss Hard- 
ing by suggesting that you can use any sort of compul- 
sion to her ? Because, if that ’s your idea, you ’d better 
look out what you ’re doing.” 

“I ’m not responsible to you, Ford,” replied Van Zyl 
shortly. “You can hold your tongue now. Miss Hard- 
ing understands well enough what I mean.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Margaret, as Ford looked towards 
her. “I understand, but I don’t care.” 

It was taking its own strange course, but she was not 
concerned to deflect it or make it run more directly. 
She conserved her powers for the moment when the 
thing would be told, and Ford’s indignant champion- 
278 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


ship arrested brusquely by the mere name of her offense. 
Presently Van Zyl would cease to speak of “a person” 
and come out with the plain word, 4 ‘Kafir.” How he 
had gained his information she did not attempt to guess ; 
but that he had the means to break her there was no 
doubting. She would answer no questions; she was de- 
termined upon that; but now that the hour of revela- 
tion was come, she would do nothing to fog it. It should 
pass and be done with and leave her with its conse- 
quences clear to weigh and abide. 

She made a motion of the hand that hung over the 
back of her chair to Ford, as though she would hush 
him. He was puzzled and looked it, but subsided pro- 
visionally against the end of the couch again. 

Van Zyl eased his shoulders in their bondage of slings 
and straps with a practised shrug, crossed one booted leg 
over the other and faced her afresh. 

“Now, Miss Harding, you see that I am not speaking 
by guess ; and it ’s for you to say whether you will have 
the rest of this here or in private. I ’m anxious to give 
you every possible consideration.” 

“I shan’t answer any questions,” said Margaret, 
“and I decline any privacy, Mr. Van Zyl.” 

“No? Very well. I must do my duty as best I 
can,” replied the sub-inspector, with official resignation. 
He referred to a back page of his note-book perfunc- 
torily. 

“On the -th of this month, man discovered weeping 
and disorderly on the platform at Zeekoe Siding, stated 
to Corporal Simms that he had been robbed of five hun- 
dred pounds by confidence trick on down train. Under 
examination, varied the sum, and finally adhered to 
figure of forty-three pounds odd, which he alleged was 
279 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


part of fifty pounds he had received from the — person 
in whose company he had seen you.” 

“Ah!” Margaret found herself smiling absently at 
the memory of Boy Bailey making his bargain on the 
top of the dam wall, with his bare unbeautiful feet fid- 
geting in the grass. 

Sub-inspector Van Zyl surveyed her with his imper- 
sonal stare and continued: 

“He gave the name of Claude Richmond, but was 
afterwards identified as one Noah Bailey, alias Boy 
Bailey, alias Spotted Bog, etc., wanted by the police in 
connection with — a certain affair. On being charged, 
feigned to fall in a fit but came to under treatment, and 
made a certain communication, which was transmitted 
to me as bearing upon my search for this — person. The 
communication was detailed, Miss Harding, and he stood 
to it under a searching examination, and satisfied us 
that we were getting the truth out of him. Acting upon 
the information thus received, I next called upon you.” 

He looked up. “You see what I have to go upon?” 
he said. “Since you know yourself what took place on 
the afternoon about which I asked you, you can under- 
stand that the police require your assistance. Do you 
still refuse to answer me, Miss Harding?” 

“Of course,” replied Margaret. 

Now it would come, she thought. Van Zyl would 
spare her no longer. She watched his smooth, tanned 
face with nervous trepidation. 

He frowned slightly at her answer, and leaned for- 
ward with the note-book in his hand, his forefinger be- 
tween the pages to keep the place. 

“You do?” he demanded, his voice rising to a sharp 
note. Ford sat up again, watchful and angry. “You 
280 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


refuse, do you? Now, look here, Miss Harding, we ’ll 
have to make an end of this.” 

Ford struck in crisply. “Good idea,” he said. “I 
suggest Miss Harding might quit the room for that pur- 
pose, and leave you to explain to me what the devil 
you mean by this.” 

Van Zyl turned on him quickly. “You look out,” he 
said. “If I ’ve got to arrest you to shut your mouth, 
I ’ll do it — and quick too.” 

“Why not?” demanded Ford. “That ’ll be as good 
a way for you to get the lesson you need as any 
other . ’ 9 

“You’ll get a lesson,” began Van Zyl, making as 
though to rise and put his threat into action. 

‘ 4 Oh, please, ’ ’ cried Margaret ; ‘ ‘ none of this is neces- 
sary. Sit down, Mr. Ford; please sit down and listen. 
Mr. Van Zyl, you have only to speak out and you will be 
free from further trouble, I ’m sure.” 

“I ’ve taken too much trouble as it is,” retorted the 
sub-inspector. “I ’ll have no more of it.” 

He glared with purpose at Ford. Though he had not 
at any moment doffed his formality of demeanor, the 
small scene had lit a spark in him and he was newly 
formidable and forceful. Ford met his look with the 
narrow smile with which a man of his type masks a ris- 
ing temper, hut so far yielded to Margaret’s urgency 
as to lean back upon one elbow. 

“You ’ll be sorry for all this presently,” Margaret 
said to him warningly. 

“Very soon, in fact,” added the sub-inspector, “if 
he repeats the offense.” 

He settled himself again on his chair, confronting 
Margaret. 


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“Now, Miss Harding,” he resumed briskly. “Out 
with it? You admit you were there, eh?” 

“Oh, no,” said Margaret. “You ’re asking ques- 
tions again, Mr. Van Zyl.” 

“And I ’m going to have an answer, too,” he re- 
plied zestfully. “You ’ve got a wrong idea entirely of 
what ’s before you. You can still have this in private, 
if you like; but here or elsewhere, you ’ll speak or out 
comes the whole thing. Now, which is it going to be — 
sharp ? ’ ’ 

“I ’ve nothing to tell you,” she maintained. 

His blond, neat face hardened. 

“Haven’t you, though. We’ll see? You know a 
Kafir calling himself — ” he made a lightning reference 
to his book — “calling himself Kamis?” 

She made no answer. 

“You know the man, eh? It was with him you spent 
the afternoon of the -th, was n ’t it ? Under the wall of 
the dam down yonder — yes? You ’ve met him more 
than once, and always alone ? ’ ’ 

She kept a constraint on herself to preserve her 
faintly-smiling indifference of countenance, but her face 
felt stiff and cold, and her smile as though it sagged to 
a blatant grin. She did not glance across to see how 
Ford had received the news; that had suddenly become 
impossible. 

“You see?” There was a restrained triumph in Van 
Zyl’s voice. “We know more than you think, young 
lady — and more still. Yon won’t answer questions, 
won’t you? You let a Kafir kiss you under a wall, and 
then put up this kind of bluff. ’ ’ 

There was an explosion from Ford as he leaped to his 
feet, with the hectic brilliant on each cheek. 

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“You liar,” he cried. “You filthy Dutch liar.” 

Van Zyl did not even turn his head. A hard smile 
parted his squarely-cut lips as he watched Margaret. 
At his word, she had made a small involuntary move- 
ment as though to put a hand on her bosom, but had let 
it fall again. 

“You may decide to answer that, perhaps,” sug- 
gested the sub-inspector. “Do you deny that he kissed 
you?” 

There was a pause, while Ford stood waiting and the 
sound of his breathing filled the interval. The fingers 
of Margaret’s left hand bent and unbent the flap of the 
envelope destined for the legal uncle, but her mind was 
far from it and its contents. “You liar,” Ford had 
cried, and it had had a fine sound; even now she had 
but to rise as though insulted and walk from the room, 
and his loyalty would endure, unspotted, unquestion- 
ing, touchy and quick. She might have done well to 
choose the line that would have made that loyalty valid, 
and she felt herself full of regrets, of pain and loss, 
that it must find itself betrayed. The vehemence of the 
cry was testimony to the faith that gave it utterance. 

And then, for the first time in the interview, she dwelt 
upon the figure that stood at the back of all this disor- 
dered trouble — that of Kamis, remote from their agi- 
tated circle, companioning in his solitude with griefs of 
his own. He came into her mind by way of compari- 
son with the directness and vivid anger of Ford, stand- 
ing tense and agonized for her reply, with all his honest 
soul in his thin dark face. His flimsy silk clothes made 
apparent the lean youth of his body. The other went 
to and fro in the night and the silence in shabby tweeds, 
and his face denied an index to the strong spirit that 
283 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


drove him. He suffered behind blubber lips and a com- 
ical nose; he was humble and grateful. The two had 
nothing in common if it were not that faith in her, to 
which she must now do the peculiar justice that the sit- 
uation required. 

“Let’s have it,” urged the sub-inspector. “He 
kissed you. this nigger did, and you let him? Speak 
up.” 

Boy Bailey had said, imaginatively: “She held out 
both her arms to him — wide ; and he took hold of her an ’ 
hugged her, kissin’ her till I couldn’t stand the sight 
any longer. 4 You shameless woman!’ I shouted” — at 
that point he had been kicked by a scandalized corporal, 
and had screamed. “I wish I may die if he did n’t kiss 
her,” was the form that kicking finally reduced it to, 
but they could not kick that out of him. He stood for 
one kiss while bruises multiplied upon him. 

“Well, did he kiss you or didn’t he?” 

Margaret sighed. “I will tell you that,” she said 
wearily. “Yes, he did — he kissed my hand.” 

Sub-inspector Van Zyl sat up briskly. “I thought 
we ’d get something before we were done,” he said, and 
smiled with a kind of malice at Ford. “You ’d like to 
apologize, I expect?” 

Ford did not answer him; he was staring in mere 
amazement at Margaret’s immovable profile. 

“Is that true?” he demanded. 

Margaret forced herself to look round and meet the 
wonder of his face. 

“Oh, quite,” she answered. “Quite true.” 

His eyes wavered before hers as though he were 
ashamed and abashed. He put an uncertain hand to 
his lips. 


284 


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“I see,” he said, very thoughtfully, and sat again 
upon the couch. 

* 4 Well, after that, what ’s the sense of keeping any- 
thing back?” Yan Zyl went on confidently. “You see 
what comes of standing out against the police? Now, 
what are your arrangements for meeting this Kafir? 
Where do you send to let him know he ’s to come and see 
you ? ’ ’ 

“No,” said Margaret. “It’s no use; I won’t tell 
you any more.” 

“Oh, yes, you will.” Yan Zyl felt quite sure of it. 
He eyed her acutely and decided to venture a shot in 
the dark. “You ’ll tell me all I ask, — d’you hear? I 
haven’t done with you yet. You ’ve seen him at night, 
too, when you were supposed to he in bed. You can’t 
deceive me. I ’ve seen your kind before, plenty of them, 
and I know the way to deal with them. ’ ’ 

His shot in the dark found its mark. So he knew of 
that night when Dr. Jakes had fallen in the road. Mrs. 
Jakes must have told him, and her protests had been 
uneasy lies. Margaret carefully avoided looking at her ; 
in this hour, all were to receive mercy save herself. 

Yan Zyl went on, rasping at her in tones quite unlike 
the thickish staccato voice which he kept for his unofficial 
moments. That voice she would never hear again; im- 
possible for her ever to regain the status of a person in 
whom the police have no concern. 

“You ’ll save yourself trouble by speaking up and 
wasting no time about it,” he urged, with the kind of 
harsh good nature a policeman may use to the offender 
who provides him with employment. “You ’ve got to 
do it, you know. How do you get hold of your nigger- 
friend when you want him?” 

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She shook her head without speaking. 

‘ * Answer !” he roared suddenly, so that she started 
in her chair. 4 ‘What ’s the arrangement you ’ve got 
with him? None of your airs with me, my girl. Out 
with it, now — what ’s the trick ?” 

She looked at him affrightedly ; he seemed about to 
spring upon her from his chair and dash at her to wring 
an answer out of her by force. But from the sofa, 
where Ford sat, with his head in his hands, came no 
sign. Only Mrs. Jakes, frozen where she sat, uttered 
a vague moan. 

“Wha — what ’s this?” 

The door opened noiselessly and Dr. Jakes showed his 
face of a fallen cherub in the opening, with sleepy eyes 
mildly questioning. Margaret saw him with quick re- 
lief ; the intolerable situation must change in some man- 
ner by his arrival. 

“I heard — I heard — was it you shouting, Van Zyl?” 
he inquired, stammeringly, as he came in. 

“Yes,” replied the sub-inspector, shortly. 

“Oh!” Jakes felt uncertainly for his straggling 
mustache. “Whom were you shouting at?” he in- 
quired, after a moment of hesitation. 

“I was speaking to her,” replied the other impa- 
tiently. 

The doctor followed the movement of his hand and 
the light of his spectacles focused on Margaret stupidly. 

“Well.” He seemed baffled. “Miss Harding, you 
mean, eh?” 

The sub-inspector nodded. “You ’re interrupting an 
inquiry, Dr. Jakes.” 

“Oh.” Again the doctor seemed to wrestle with 
thoughts. “Am I?” 


286 


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“Yes. Yon ’ll excuse ns, but — ” 

“No,” said Jakes, with an appearance of grave 
thought. “No; certainly not. Yon — you mustn’t 
shout here.” 

“Look here,” began Yan Zyl. 

The doctor turned his back on him and came over 
to Margaret, treading lumberingly across the worn car- 
pet. 

“Can’t allow shouting,” he said. “It means — tem- 
perature. I — I think you ’d better — yes, you ’d better 
go and lie down for a while, Miss Harding. ’ ’ 

He was as vague as a cloud, a mere mist of benevo- 
lence. 

As unexpectedly and almost as startlingly as Yan 
Zyl’s sudden loudness, Mrs. Jakes spoke from her 
chair. 

“You must take the doctor’s advice, Miss Harding,” 
she said. 

Margaret rose, obediently, her letters in her hand. 
Yan Zyl rose too. 

“Once and for all,” he said loudly, “I won’t allow 
any—” 

“I ’ll report you, Yan Zyl,” said the little doctor, 
huskily. “You ’re — you ’re endangering life — way 
you ’re behaving. Go with Mrs. Jakes, Miss Hard- 
ing.” 

“You ’ll report me,” exclaimed Yan Zyl. 

“Ye-es,” said Jakes, foggily. “I — I call Mr. Ford 
to witness — ” 

He turned quaveringly towards the couch and stopped 
abruptly. 

“What ’s this?” he cried, in stronger tones, and 
walked quickly toward the bent figure of the young 

287 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


man. “Van Zyl I — I hold you responsible. You ’ve 
done this — with your shouting.” 

Margaret was in the door ; she turned to see the doctor 
raise Ford’s head and lift it back against the cushions. 
Van Zyl went striding towards them and aided to place 
him on his back on the couch. As the doctor stood up 
and stepped back, she saw the thin face with the high 
spot of red on each cheek and the blood that ran down 
the chin from the wry and painful mouth. 

“Hester,” Dr. Jakes spoke briskly. “The ergotin — 
and the things. In the study; you know.” 

“I know.” And Mrs. Jakes — so her name was Hes- 
ter — ran pattering off. 

They shut Margaret out of the room, and she sat on 
the bottom step of the stairs, waiting for the news Mrs. 
Jakes had promised, between breaths, to bring out to 
her. Van Zyl, ordered out unceremoniously — the doc- 
tor had had a fine peremptory moment — and allowing a 
certain perturbation to be visible on the regulated equa- 
nimity of his features, stood in the hall and gave her 
side glances that betrayed a disturbed mind. 

“Miss Harding,” he said presently, after long 
thought; “I hope you don’t think it ’s any pleasure to 
me to do all this?” 

Margaret shook her head. “You can do what you 
like,” she said. “I shan’t complain.” 

“It is n ’t that, ’ ’ he answered irritably, but she inter- 
rupted him. 

“I don’t care what it is,” she said. “I don’t care; I 
don’t care about anything. Stand there, if you like, 
or come and sit here; but don’t talk any more till we 
know what ’s happened in there.” 

Sub-inspector Van Zyl coughed, but after certain hes- 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


itation, he made up his mind. When Mrs. Jakes came 
forth, tiptoe and pale but whisperingly exultant, she 
found them sitting side by side on the stairs in the atti- 
tude of amity, listening in strained silence for sounds 
that filtered through the door of the room. She was 
pressed and eager, with no faculty to spare for surprise. 

“ Splendid/ ’ she whispered. “ Everything ’s all 
right — thank God. But if it hadn’t been for the doc- 
tor, well! I’m going to fetch the boys with the 
stretcher to carry him up to his room. ’ ’ 

“I ’m awfully glad,” said Van Zyl as she hurried 
away. 

“So am I,” said Margaret. “But I ought to have 
seen before the doctor did. I ought to have known — 
and I did know, really — that he would have taken 
you by the throat before then, if something hadn’t hap- 
pened to him.” 

She had risen, to go up the stairs to her room and 
now stood above him, looking down serenely upon him. 

“Me by the throat,” exclaimed Van Zyl, slightly 
shocked. 

Margaret nodded. 

“As Kamis would,” she said slowly. “And choke 
you, and choke you, and choke you. ’ ’ 

She went up then without looking back, leaving him 
standing in the hall, baffled and outraged. 


19 


289 


CHAPTER XV 


N OT the stubbornness of a race too prone to en- 
thusiasms, any more than increasing years and 
the memento mori in his chest, could withhold Mr. Sam- 
son from the zest with which he initiated each new day. 
Bathed, razored and tailored, he came out to the 
stoep for his early constitutional, his hands joined be- 
hind his back, his soft hat cocked a little forward on 
his head, and tasted the air with puffs and snorts of 
appetite, walking to and fro with a eupeptic briskness 
in which only the closest observer might have detected 
a delicate care not to over do it. Nothing troubled 
him at this hour of the morning ; it belonged to a duty 
which engrossed it to the exclusion of all else, and 
not till it was done was Mr. Samson accessible to the 
claims of time and place. 

He looked straight before him as he strode ; his man- 
ner of walking did not allow him to bestow a glance 
upon the Karoo as he went. Head well up, chest open 
— what there was of it — and neck swelling over the 
purity of his collar : that was Mr. Samson. It was only 
when Mrs. Jakes came to the breakfast-room door and 
set the gong booming melodiously, that he relaxed and 
came back to a mild interest in the immediate earth, 
as though the gong were a permission to stand at ease 
and dismiss. He halted by the steps to wipe his 
monocle in his white abundant handkerchief, and sur- 
290 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


veyed, perfunctorily at first and then with a narrowing 
interest, the great extent of brown and gray-green that 
stretched away from the foot of the steps to a silvery 
and indeterminate distance. 

A single figure was visible upon it, silhouetted 
strongly against the low sky, and Mr. Samson worked 
his monocle into his eye and grasped it with a pliant 
eyebrow to see the clearer. It was a man on a horse, 
moving at a walk, minutely clear in that crystal air 
in spite of the distance. The rider was far from the 
road, apparently aimless and at large upon the veld; 
but there was something in his attitude as he rode 
that held Mr. Samson gazing, a certain erectness and 
ease, something conventional, the name of which 
dodged evasively at the tip of his tongue. He knew 
somebody who sat on a horse exactly like that; dash 
it, who was it, now? It wasn’t that Dutchman, Du 
Preez, nor his long-legged youngster; they rode like 
Dutchmen. This man was more like — more like — ah! 
Mr. Samson had got it. The only folk who had that 
look in the saddle were troopers; this must be a man 
of the Mounted Police. 

A tinge of annoyance colored his thoughts, for the 
far view of the trooper, slowly quartering the land, 
brought back to his mind a matter of which it had 
been purged by the ritual morning march along the 
stoep, and he found it returning again as distasteful 
as ever. He had been made a party to its details by 
Mrs. Jakes, when he inquired regarding Ford’s break- 
down. The communication had taken place at the foot 
of the stairs, when he was preparing to ascend to 
bed, on the evening of Van Zyl’s visit. At dinner 
291 


FLOWER O' THE PEACH 


lie had noted no more than that Ford was absent and 
that Margaret was nneasy; he kept his question till 
her skirt vanished at the bend of the stairs. 

1 1 1 say ; what ’s np ? ’ ’ he asked then. 

Mrs. Jakes, standing by to give good night, as her 
wont was, fluttered. She gave a little start that shook 
her clothes exactly like the movement of an agitated 
bird in a cage, and stared up at him, rather breath- 
lessly, while he leaned against the balustrade and 
awaited her answer. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” It was a formula 
that always gave her time to collect her thoughts. 

‘ ‘Oh, yes, you do,” insisted Mr. Samson, with severe 
geniality. “Ford laid up and Miss Harding making 
bread pills, and all that. What ’s the row ? ’ ’ 

Mrs. Jakes regarded him with an eye as hard and 
as wary as a fowl’s, and then looked round to see that 
the study door was securely shut. 

“I ’m afraid, Mr. Samson,” she said, in the low 
tones of confidential intercourse — “I ’m afraid we ’ve 
been mistaken in Miss Harding.” 

“Eh? What ’s that?” 

Old Mr. Samson would speak as though he were ad- 
dressing a numerous company, and Mrs. Jakes’ nerv- 
ousness returned at his loud exclamation. She made 
hushing noises. 

“Yes, but what ’s all this nonsense?” demanded Mr. 
Samson. “Somebody ’s been pullin’ your leg, Mrs. 
Jakes.” 

“No, indeed, Mr. Samson,” Mrs. Jakes assured him 
hastily, as though urgent to clear herself of an imputa- 
tion. “There isn’t any doubt about it, — I ’m sorry to 
say. You see, Mr. Van Zyl came here this afternoon and 
292 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


wanted to see Miss Harding in the study. Well, she 
wouldn’t go to him.” 

‘ ‘Why the deuce should she?” inquired Mr. Samson 
warmly. “Who ’s Van Zyl to send for people like 
this ? ’ ’ 

“It was about a Kafir,” said Mrs. 'Jakes. “The 
police are looking for the Kafir and Miss Harding re- 
fused to help them. So — ” 

Mr. Samson’s lips moved soundlessly, and he changed 
his position with a movement of lively impatience. 

“Let ’s have it from the beginning, please, Mrs. 
Jakes,” he said, with restraint. “Can’t make head or 
tail of it — way you ’re telling it. Now, why did this 
ass Van Zyl come here?” 

It was the right way to get the tale told forthright. 
His indignation and his scorn fanned the spark of 
spite in the core of Mrs. Jakes, who perceived in Mr. 
Samson another victim to Margaret’s duplicity. She 
was galled by the constant supply of champions of the 
girl’s cause who had to be laid low one after the other. 
She addressed herself to the incredulity and anger in 
the sharp old face before her, and spoke volubly and 
low, telling the whole thing as she knew it and perhaps 
a little more than the whole. As she went on, she be- 
came consumed with eagerness to convince Mr. Samson. 
Her small disfigured hands moved jerkily in incomplete 
gestures, and she rose on tiptoe as though to approach 
nearer to the seat of his intelligence. He did not again 
interrupt her, but listened with intentness, watching 
her as the swift words tumbled on one another’s heels 
from her trembling lips. His immobility and silence 
were agonizing to her. 

“So that ’s why I say that we ’ve been mistaken in 
293 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

Miss Harding,” she concluded at last. “You wouldn’t 
have thought it of her, would you, Mr. Samson? And 
it is a shocking thing to come across here, in the house, 
isn’t it?” 

Mr. Samson withdrew a hand from his pocket, 
looked thoughtfully at three coins in the palm of it, and 
returned them to the pocket again. 

“You ’re quite certain,” he asked, “that she admitted 
the kissin’? There ’s no doubt about that?” 

“If I never speak another word,” declared Mrs. Jakes, 
with fervor. “If I die here where I stand. If I never 
move from this spot — those were her exact words. It 
was then that poor Mr. Ford had his attack — he was so 
horrified.” 

“Well,” said Mr. Samson, with a sigh, after another 
inspection of his funds, “so that ’s the trouble, is it?” 

“The doctor and I are much disturbed,” continued 
Mrs. Jakes. “Naturally disturbed. Such a thing has 
never happened here before. ’ ’ 

Mr. Samson heaved himself upright and put one foot 
on the bottom stair. 

“It ’s only ignorance, of course,” he said. “The poor 
little devil don’t know what she ’s letting herself in 
for. If she ’d only taken a bad turn after a month 
or so and — and gone out, Mrs. Jakes, we ’d have re- 
membered her pleasantly enough then. Now, of course, 
she ’ll have this story to live with. Van Zyl ’ll put it 
about ; trust him. Poor little bally fool. ’ ’ 

“I ’m sorry for her, too, of course,” replied Mrs. 
Jakes, putting out her hand to shake his. “Only of 
course I ’m — I ’m disgusted as well. Any woman would 
be.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Samson thoughtfully, commencing 
294 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

the ascent; “yes, she ’ll be sure to get lots of that, 
now. ’ ’ 

It was a vexation that abode with him that night and 
through the next day; it kept him from the sincere re- 
pose which is the right of straightforward and uncom- 
promising minds, whose cleanly-finished effects have no 
loose ends of afterthought dangling from them to goad 
a man into revising his conclusions. Lying in the 
dark, wide awake and regretful, he had a vision of her 
in her room, welcoming its solitude and its freedom 
from reproachful eyes, glad now not of fellows and 
their companionship but of this refuge. It gave him 
vague pain. He experienced a sense of resentment 
against the arrangement and complexity of affairs that 
had laid open this gulf at Margaret’s feet, and made 
its edges slippery to trap her. A touch of a more 
personal anger entered his thoughts as he dwelt on the 
figure of the girl, the fine, dexterous, civilized creature 
that she had been. She had known how to hold him 
with a pleasant humor, a light and stimulating irrever- 
ence, and to soften it to the point at which she bade 
him close his eyes and kissed him. But — and Mr. Sam- 
son flushed to the heat at which men swear — the Kafir, 
the roaming criminal nigger, had had that much out 
of her. Mrs. Jakes had not been faithful to detail on 
that head. “Kiss,” she had said, not “kissed her 
hand.” Mr. Samson might have seen a difference 
where Yan Zyl, lacking his pretty discrimination of de- 
grees in the administration and reception of kisses, had 
seen none. 

The morning had brought no counsel; the day had 
delivered itself of nothing that enlightened or con- 
soled him. Margaret had managed somehow, after a 
295 


FLOWER, O’ THE PEACH 


manner of her own, to withdraw herself from his im- 
mediate outlook, and there were neither collisions nor 
explanations. It was not so much that she preserved 
a distance as avoided contact, so that meals and meet- 
ings in the drawing-room or about the house suffered 
from no evidences of a change in their regard for each 
other. The adroitness with which it was contrived 
moved him to new regrets; she might, he thought, have 
done so well for herself, whereas now she was wasted. 

This was the second morning since he had invaded 
Mrs. Jakes’ confidences at the foot of the stairs and 
extracted her story from her. The gong at the break- 
fast-room door made soft blurred music at his back 
while he stood watching the remote figure of the 
trooper, sliding slowly across the skyline. It finished 
with a last note of added emphasis, a frank whack at 
the middle of the instrument, and he turned deliberately 
from his staring to obey it. 

Mrs. Jakes, engine-driving the urn, was alone in the 
room when he entered, and gave him good morning with 
the smile which she had not varied for years. 

“A beautiful day, isn’t it?” she said. 

“Oh, perfect,” agreed Mr. Samson, receiving a cup 
of coffee from her. “I say. You haven’t seen any 
signs of Van Zyl to-day, have you?” 

“To-day? No,” replied Mrs. Jakes, surprised. 
“Were you expecting — did he say — ?” 

Mr. Samson shook his head. “No; I don’t know any- 
thing about him,” he told her. “It ’s just that matter 
of Miss Harding, you know. From the stoep, just now, 
I was watching a mounted man riding slowly about on 
the veld, and it looks as if they were arranging a 
search. Eh?” 


296 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, “I do hope they 
won’t come here again. I ’ve never had any trouble 
with the police before. And Mr. Van Zyl, generally 
so gentlemanly — when I saw how he treated Miss Hard- 
ing, I was really sorry for her,” 

Mr. Samson sniffed. “Man must be a cad,” he said. 
“Anyhow, I don’t see what right he ’s got to put his 
foot inside these doors. It was simply a bluff, I fancy. 
Next time he comes, I hope you ’ll let me know, Mrs. 
Jakes. Can’t have him treatin’ that poor little fool 
like that, don’t y’know.” 

“But they ’ve got a right to search, surely?” pro- 
tested Mrs. Jakes. “And it never does to have the 
police against you, Mr. Samson. I had a cousin once 
— at least, he wasn’t exactly a cousin — but he took 
a policeman’s number for refusing to arrest a man 
who had been rude to him, and the policeman at once 
took him in custody and swore the most dreadful oaths 
before the magistrate that he was drunk and disor- 
derly. And my cousin — I always used to call him a 
cousin — was next door to a teetotaller. ’ ’ 

“Perhaps the teetotaller bribed the policeman,” sug- 
gested Mr. Samson, seriously. “Still — what about 
Miss Harding ? She has n ’t said anything to you about 
goin ’ back home, has she ? ’ ’ 

“No,” said Mrs. Jakes. She let the teetotaller pass for 
the time being as the new topic opened before her. “But 
I wanted to speak to you about that, Mr. Samson.” 

“Best thing she can do,” he said positively. 
“There ’s a lot of people at Home who don’t mind 
niggers a bit. Probably would n ’t hurt her for a month 
and her doctors can spot some other continent for her 
to do a cure in.” 


297 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Now I ’m very glad to hear yon say so, Mr. Sam- 
son,’ * declared Mrs. Jakes. “You see, what to do with 
her is a good deal on our minds — the doctor’s and 
mine. My view is — she ought to go before the story 
gets about.” 

“Quite right,” agreed Mr. Samson. 

“But Eustace — he ’s so considerate, you know. He 
thinks of her feelings. He ’s dreadfully afraid that 
she ’ll fancy we ’re turning her out and be hurt. He 
really doesn’t quite see the real state of affairs; he 
has an idea it ’ll all blow over and be forgotten. ’ ’ 

Mr. Samson shook his head. “Not out here,” he 
said. “That sort of story don’t die; it lives and grows. 
Might get into the papers, even.” 

“Well, now,” Mrs. Jakes’ voice was soft and per- 
suasive; “do you mind my telling the doctor how you 
look at it? He doesn’t pay any attention to what I 
say, but coming from you, it ’s bound to strike him. 
It would be better than you talking to him about it, 
because he wouldn’t care to discuss one of his patients 
with another; but if I were just to mention, as an 
argument, you know — ” 

“Oh, certainly,” acquiesced Mr. Samson, “certainly. 
Those are my views; anybody can know ’em. Tell 
Jakes by all means.” 

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Jakes, with feeling. “It 
does relieve me to know that you agree with me. And 
it is such a responsibility.” 

Margaret’s entrance shortly afterwards brought their 
conference to a close, and Mr. Samson was able to re- 
turn to his food with undivided attention. 

Margaret’s demeanor since the exposure was a phe- 
298 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


nomenon Mrs. Jakes did not profess to understand. 
The tall girl came into the room with a high serenity 
that stultified in advance the wan little woman’s ef- 
forts to meet her with a remote dignity; it suggested 
that Mrs. Jakes and her opinions were things already 
so remote from her interest that they could not recede 
further without becoming invisible. What she lacked, 
in Mrs. Jakes’ view, was visible scars, tokens of punish- 
ment and suffering; she could conceive no other at- 
titude in a person who stood so much in need of the 
mercy of her fellows. To a humility commensurate 
with her disapproval, she would have offered a forbear- 
ance barbed with condescension, peppered balm of her 
own brand, the distillation of her narrow and pur- 
poseful soul. As it was, she not only resented the 
girl’s manner — she cowered. 

“Good morning,” said Margaret, smiling with in- 
tention. 

“Good morning, Miss — ah — Miss Harding,” was the 
best Mrs. Jakes could do. 

“Morning,” responded Mr. Samson, lifting his white 
head jerkily, hoping to convey preoccupation and casual 
absence of mind. “Morning, Miss Harding. Jolly 
day, what?” 

“Oh, no end jolly,” agreed Margaret, dropping into 
her place. “Yes, coffee, please, Mrs. Jakes.” 

“Certainly, Miss Harding,” replied Mrs. Jakes, who 
had made offer of none, and fumbled inexpertly with 
the ingenious urn whose chauffeur and minister she 
was. 

“How is Mr. Ford?” inquired Margaret next. 

“Oh, yes,” chimed in Mr. Samson, anxious to pre- 

299 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


vent too short a reply; “how ’s he this morning, Mrs. 
Jakes. Nicely, thank you, and all that — eh?” 

Mrs. Jakes was swift to seize the opportunity to reply 
in Mr. Samson ’s direction exclusively. 

“He ’s not to get up to-day,” she explained. “But 
he ’s doing very well, thank you. When I asked him 
what he ’d like for breakfast, he said: 4 Oh, every- 
thing there is, please/ But, of course, he ’s had a 
shock. * ’ 

“Er — yes,” said Mr. Samson hurriedly. “I 11 look 
him up before lunch, if I may.” 

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Jakes graciously. 

“Good idea,” said Margaret. “So will I.” 

Mrs. Jakes shot a pale and desperate glance at her 
and then looked for support to Mr. Samson. But that 
leaning tower of strength was eating devotedly and 
would not meet her eye. 

She envisaged with inward consternation a future 
punctuated by such meals, with every meal partaking of 
the nature of a hostile encounter and every encounter 
closing with a defeat. Her respectability, her sad 
virtue, her record clean of stain, did not command 
heavy enough metal to breach the gleaming panoply 
of assurance with which Margaret opposed all her at- 
tacks, and she felt the grievance common to those who 
are ineffectually in the right. The one bright spot in 
the affair was the possibility that she might now bend 
Jakes to her purpose, and be deputed to give the girl 
notice that she must leave the Sanatorium. She felt 
she could quote Mr. Samson with great effect to the 
doctor. 

“Mr. Samson feels strongly that she should leave at 
Once. He said so in the plainest words,” she would 
300 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


report, and Jakes would be obliged to take account of 
it. Hitherto, her hints, her suggestions and even her 
supplications, had failed to move him. He had a way, 
at times, of producing from his humble and mi sty mild- 
ness a formidable obstinacy which brooked no opposi- 
tion. With bent head, he would look up at her out of 
the corners of his eyes, while she added plausibility 
to volubility, unmoving and immovable. When she had 
done, for he always heard her ominously to an end, he 
would shake his head slightly and emit a negative. It 
was rather impressive ; there was so little show of force 
about it; but Mrs. Jakes had long known that it be- 
tokened a barrier of refusal that it was useless to hope 
to surmount. If he were pressed further, he would 
rouse a little and amplify his meaning with phrases of 
a deplorable vulgarity and force. In his medical 
student days, the doctor had been counted a capable 
hand at the ruder kinds of out-patient work. 

The last time she had pressed him to decree Mar- 
garet’s departure was in the study, where he sat with 
his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned up, as though 
he contemplated an evening of strenuousness ; the 
bottles and glasses were grouped on the desk at his 
elbow. Mrs. Jakes had represented vivaciously her 
sufferings in having to meet Miss Harding and contain 
the emotions that effervesced in her bosom. She sat in 
the patient’s chair, and carefully guided her eyes away 
from the drinking apparatus. The doctor had uttered 
his “No” as usual, and she tried, against her better 
sense, to reason with him. 

“There ’s me to think of, too,” she urged anxiously. 

4 ‘ The way she walks past me, Eustace, you ’d think I ’d 
never had a silk lining in my life.” 

301 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“No,” said the doctor again, with a little genteel 
cough behind three fingers. “No, we can’t. ’T would 
n’t do, Hester. Bringing her out o’ bed in her night- 
gown that night — it was doing her dirt. Yes, I know 
all about the nigger, and dam lucky it was for me 
she ’d got him handy. I might have been there yet 
for all you did. And as for silk linings, don’t you get 
your shirt out, Hester. She ’s all right.” 

He put out a hand to the whisky bottle, looking at 
her impatiently with red-rimmed eyes, and she had 
risen with a sigh, knowing it was time for her to go. 
She fired one parting shot of sincere feeling. 

“Well, I suppose I ’ve got to suffer in silence, if 
you say so, Eustace,” she observed resignedly. “But 
it ’s as bad as if we kept a shop.” 

But as the mouthpiece of Mr. Samson, she would be 
better equipped. It could be made to appear to Jakes 
that remonstrances were in the air and that there was 
a danger of losing Samson and Ford, and he would 
have to give ground. Mrs. Jakes thought well of the 
prospects of her enterprise now. She would have been 
alarmed and astonished if any responsible person had 
called her spiteful and unscrupulous, for she knew she 
was neither of these things. She Was merely creeping 
under obstacles that she could not climb over, going to 
work with such means as came to her hand to secure 
an entirely worthy end. She knew her own mind, in 
short, and if it had wavered in its purpose, she would 
have known it no longer. 

Margaret, all unconscious of the ingenuity that spent 
itself upon her, ate a leisurely breakfast, giving Mr. 
Samson ample time to escape to the stoep alone and 
establish himself there. She didn’t at all mind being 
302 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


left alone with Mrs. Jakes. That lady’s stiffness and 
the facial expressions which she tried on, one after 
the other, in an endeavor to make her countenance 
match her mind, could be made ineffective by the simple 
process of ignoring them and her together. By dint^f 
preserving a seeming of contented tranquillity and 
speaking not one word, it was possible to abash poor 
Mrs. Jakes utterly and leave her writhing in impotence 
behind her full-bodied urn. This was the method that 
commended itself to Margaret and which she employed 
successfully. Everybody should have a cut at her, she 
had decided; she would not baulk one of them of the 
privilege; but Mrs. Jakes had had her turn, and could 
not be permitted to cut and come again. 

There were several remarks that Mrs. Jakes might 
have made with effect, but none of them occurred to 
her till Margaret had left the room, departing with an 
infuriating rustle of silk linings. Mrs. Jakes moved in 
her chair to see her cross the hall and go out. A look 
of calculation overspread her sour little face. 

1 1 1 did n ’t notice the silk in that one, ’ ’ she murmured 
thoughtfully. 

Mr. Samson, with a comparatively recent weekly 
edition of the Cape Times to occupy him did not notice 
her rubber-soled approach till her shadow fell on the 
page he was reading. He looked up sharply. 

“Ah, Miss Harding,” he said weakly. 

She leaned with her back against the rail, looking 
down at him in his basket chair, half-smiling. 

“You want to speak to me, don’t you?” she asked. 

Mr. Samson did not understand. “Do I?” he said. 
“Did I say so? I wonder what it was,” 

“You didn’t say so,” Margaret answered. “But I 

303 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


know yon do. You would n’t send me finally to Coven- 
try without saying anything at all, would you ? ’ ’ 

“Ah!” He made a weary gesture with one hand, 
as though he would put the subject from him. “But 
— but I ’m not sending you to Coventry, my — Miss 
Harding, I mean. Don’t think it, for a moment.” 

He shook his white head with a touch of sadness, 
looking up at her slender, civilized figure as she stood 
before him with a gaze that granted in advance every 
claim she could make on his consideration and for- 
bearance. 

“You know what I mean,” said Margaret steadily. 

“Do I though? Well, yes, I suppose I do,” he 
said. “No use fumbling with it, is there? And you ’re 
not the fumbling kind. Each of us knows what the 
other means all right, so what ’s the use of talking 
about it?” 

Margaret would not let him off; she did not desire 
that he should spare her and could see no reason for 
sparing him. 

“I want to talk about it, this once,” she answered. 
“You won’t have many more chances to tell me what 
you think of me. I know, of course ; but I was n ’t 
going to shirk it. I ’ve disappointed you, have n ’t I ? ” 

“I don’t say so,” he replied, with careful gentleness. 
“I don’t say anything of the kind, Miss Harding. 
You took your own line as you ’d every right to do. If 
I had — sort of — imagined you were different, you ’re 
not to blame for my mistake. God knows I don’t set 
up for an example to young ladies. Not my line at 
all, that sort of thing.” 

“Nothing to say, then?” queried Margaret. He 
304 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


shook his head again. “You know,” she added, “I ’m 
not a bit ashamed — not of anything. ’ ’ 

“Of course you ’re not,” he agreed readily. “You 
did what you thought was right.” 

“But you don’t think so?” she persisted. m 

“Miss Harding,” replied Mr. Samson; “so far as I 
can manage it, I don ’t think about the matter at all. ’ ’ 

Margaret had a queer impulse to reply to this by 
bursting into tears or laughter, whichever should offer 
itself, but at that moment Mrs. Jakes came out, and 
restrained a too obvious surprise at the sight of the 
pair of them in conversation. Circumstances were 
forever lying in ambush against Mrs. Jakes and deep- 
ening the mystery of life by their unexpected poppings 
up. 

She addressed Mr. Samson and pointedly ignored 
Margaret. 

“Mr. Ford could see you now, if you cared to go 
up,” she announced. 

“Certainly, certainly,” said Mr. Samson, with 
alacrity. 

Margaret spoke, smiling openly at Mrs. Jakes’ irrec- 
oncilable side-face. 

“Oh, would you mind if I went first?” she asked. 
4 ‘ I rather want to see him. ’ ’ 

“By all means,” agreed Mr. Samson, with the same 
alacrity. “I ’m not perishin’ to inspect him, you 
know. Tell him I ’ll look him up afterwards.” 

Mrs. Jakes turned a fine bright red, and swallowed 
two or three times. She had matured a plan for de- 
claring that Ford must not be disturbed again after 
Mr. Samson’s visit, and she was fairly sure that Mar- 
20 305 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


garet had suspected it. She watched the girl’s depar- 
ture with angry and baffled eyes. 

“She ’s doing it on purpose,” was her thought. 
“She swings them like that so as to make me hear the 
f row-f row. ’ ’ 

Ford was propped against pillows in his bed, with 
most of the books in the house piled alongside of him 
on chairs and a bedside table. He was expecting Mr. 
Samson and sang out a hearty, “Come in; don’t stand 
drumming there,” at Margaret’s rap on the door. 

“It’s me,” announced Margaret, pushing it open; 
“not Mr. Samson. He ’ll look you up afterwards. Do 
you mind ? ’ ’ 

He flushed warmly, staring at her unexpected ap- 
pearance. 

“Of course I don’t mind,” he said. “It ’s awfully 
good of you. If you ’d shove these books off on the 
floor, I could offer you a chair. ’ ’ 

Margaret did as he suggested, but rose again at once 
and set the door wide open. 

“The proprieties,” she remarked, as she returned to 
her seat. “Also Mrs. Jakes. That keyhole might 
tempt her beyond her strength.” 

The room was a large one, with a window to the 
south full of sunshine and commanding nothing but the 
eternal unchanging levels of the Karoo and the hard 
sky rising from its edge. Its walls were rainbow-hued 
with unframed canvasses clustering upon them, exem- 
plifying Ford’s art and challenging the view through 
the window. She liked vaguely the spareness of the 
chamber’s equipment and its suggestions of uncompro- 
mising masculinity. The row of boots and shoes, with 
trees distributed among the chief of them, the leather 
306 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


trunks against the wall, the photographs about the 
dressing table, and the iron bath propped on end under 
the window, — these trifles seemed all to corroborate the 
impression she had of their owner. They were so 
consistent with the Ford she knew, units in the sunP'bf 
him. 

“Well,” she said, looking at him frankly; “are we 
going to talk or just exchange civilities?” 

“We won’t do that,” he answered, meeting her look. 
* ‘ Civilities be blowed, anyhow. ’ ’ 

“But I ’d like to ask you how you feel, first of all,” 
said Margaret. 

“Oh, first-rate. I ’d get up if it wasn’t for Jakes,” 
he assured her eagerly. “And I say,” he added, with 
a quick touch of awkwardness, “I hope, really, you 
haven’t been bothering about me, and thinking it was 
that affair in the drawing-room that made the trouble. 
Because it wasn’t, you know. I ’d felt something of 
the kind coming on before lunch. Jakes says that 
running up stairs may have done it — thing I ’m always 
forgetting I must n’t do. A chap can’t always be think- 
ing of his in’ards, can he?” 

“No,” agreed Margaret. 

She recognized a certain tone’ of politeness, of civil 
constraint, in his manner of speaking. He was doing 
his best to be trivial and ordinary, but she could not be 
deceived. 

“It was rotten, though,” he went on quickly. “That 
brute Van Zyl — look here! I ’m most fearfully sorry 
I wasn’t able to put a stop to his talk, Miss Harding. 
It makes me sick to think of you being badgered by that 
fellow.” 

“It didn’t hurt me,” said Margaret thoughtfully. 

307 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

“All that is nothing. But are n’t we being rather civil, 
after all ? ’ ’ 

He made a slight grimace. He looked very frail 
against the pillows, with his nervous, sun-tanned hands 
fidgeting on the coverlet. One button of his pyjamas 
was loose at the throat, and let his lean neck be seen, 
with the tan stopping short where the collar came and 
giving place to white skin below. 

“Oh, well,” he said, in feeble protest. “Why 
bother ?” 

“I thought you ’d want to,” replied Margaret. “I 
don’t expect you to — to approve, but I did rely on 
your bothering about it all a little. But if you ’d 
rather not, that ends the matter. ’ ’ 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. 

“Tell me,” demanded Margaret; “don’t you think 
I owe you an explanation ? ’ ’ 

He considered her gravely for some seconds. 

“Yes,” he answered finally. “I think you ought to 
tell me about it. ’ ’ 

“I ’m willing to,” she said earnestly. “Oh, I 
wanted to often and often before. But I had to be 
careful. This Kafir is in danger of arrest by Mr. Van 
Zyl, and though he could easily clear himself before 
a court, you know what it means for a native to be 
arrested by him. He ‘takes the kick out of them.’ So 
I wasn’t really free to speak.” 

“Perhaps you weren’t,” granted Ford. “But you 
were free to keep away from him, and from niggers 
in general — were n ’t you ? ’ ’ 

“Quite,” agreed Margaret. “It is n’t niggers in gen- 
eral, though — it ’s just this one. ’ ’ 

She leaned forward, with both elbows on the edge 
308 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


of the bed and her fingers intertwined. She felt that 
the color had mounted in her face, but she was sedulous 
to keep her eyes on his. 

“He ’s a nigger — yes,” she said; “black as your hat, 
and all that. But there ’s a difference. This — nigger 
— I hate that word — was taken away when he was six 
years old and brought up in England. He was prop- 
erly educated and he ’s a doctor, a real doctor with 
diplomas and degrees, and he ’s come out here to try 
and help his own people. As yet, he can’t even speak 
Kafir, and he ’s had a fearful time ever since he landed. 
Talking to him is just like talking to any one else. 
He ’s read books and knows a bit about art, and all 
that; and he ’s ever so humble and grateful for just 
a few words of talk. He ’s out there in the veld, all 
day and all night, lonely and hunted. Of course I 
spoke to him and was as friendly as I could be. Don’t 
you see, Mr. Ford ? Don ’t you see ? ” 

He nodded impartially. 

“Yes, I see,” he answered. “Well?” 

“Well, that ’s all,” said Margaret. “Oh, yes — you 
mean the — the kiss? That was absolutely nothing. I 
used to make him talk and he ’d been telling me about 
how hard it was to make a start with his work, and 
how grateful he was to me for listening to him, and 
I said there was no need to be so grateful, and that it 
was a noble thing he had undertaken and that — yes — 
that I ’d always be proud I ’d been a friend of his. 
I held out my hand as I was saying this, and instead of 
shaking it, he kissed it. ’ ’ 

“That was what the blackmailer saw, was it?” asked 
Ford. Margaret nodded. “By the way, who paid 
him?” 


309 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“He did,” Margaret answered. “ I wouldn’t have 
paid a penny. He insisted on paying.” 

She was watching him anxiously. He was frowning 
in deep thought. She felt her heart beat more rapidly 
as he remained for a time without answering. 

1 ‘It was worth paying for, if the fellow had kept 
faith,” he said at last. “The whole thing ’s in that 
— you don’t know what such a secret is worth. It ’s 
the one thing that binds people together out here, 
Dutch and English, colonials and Transvaalers and all 
the rest — the color line. But you didn’t know.” 

“Oh, yes,” Margaret made haste to correct him. “I 
did know. But I didn’t care and I don’t care now. 
I ’m not going to take that kind of thing into account 
at all. I won’t be bullied by any amount of preju- 
dices.” 

“It isn’t prejudice,” said Ford wearily. “Still — 
we can’t go into all that. I ’m glad you explained to 
me, though.” 

“You ’re wondering still about something,” Margaret 
said. She could read the doubt and hesitation that he 
strove to hide from her. “Do let ’s have the whole thing 
out. What is it?” 

He had half-closed his eyes but now he opened them 
and surveyed her keenly. 

“You ’ve told me how reasonable the whole thing 
was,” he said, in deliberate tones. “It was reasonable. 
That part of it ’s as right as it can be. I understand 
the picturesqueness of it all and the sadness ; it is a sad 
business. I could understand your connection with it, 
too, in spite of the man’s hiding from the police, if only 
he wasn’t a nigger. Beg pardon — a negro.” 

Margaret was following his words intently. 

310 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“What has that got to do with it?” she asked. 

“You don’t see it?” inquired Ford. “Didn’t you 
find it rather awful, being alone with him? Didn’t it 
make you creepy when he touched your hand?” 

He was curious about it, apart from her share in the 
matter. He was interested in the impersonal aspect of 
the question as well. 

“I didn’t like his face, at first,” admitted Margaret. 

“And afterwards?” 

“Afterwards I didn’t mind it,” she replied. “I ’d 
got used to it, you see.” 

He nodded. Upon her answer he had dropped his 
eyes and was no longer looking at her. 

“Well, that ’s all,” he said. “Don’t trouble about 
it any more. You ’ve explained and — if you care to 
know — I ’m quite satisfied.” 

Margaret sat slowly upright. 

1 1 No, you ’re not, ’ ’ she answered. * 1 That is n ’t true ; 
you ’re not satisfied. You ’re disappointed that I did n’t 
shrink from him and feel nervous of him. You are — 
you are ! I ’m not as good as you thought I was, and 
you ’re disappointed. Why don’t you say so? What ’s 
the use of pretending like this?” 

Ford wriggled between the sheets irritably. 

“You ’re making a row,” he said. “They ’ll hear 
you downstairs.” 

Margaret had risen and was standing by her chair. 

“I don’t care,” she said, lowering her voice at the 
same time. “But why aren’t you honest with me? 
You say you ’re satisfied and all the time you ’re think- 
ing: ‘A nigger is as good as a white man to her.’ ” 

“ I ’m not, ’ ’ protested Ford vigorously. 

“I didn’t shrink,” said Margaret. “My flesh didn’t 
311 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


crawl once. When I shake his hand, it feels just the 
same as yours. That disgusts you — I know. There ’s 
something wanting in me that you thought was there. 
Mrs. Jakes has got it; her flesh can crawl like a cater- 
pillar ; but I have n’t. You did n’t know that when you 
asked me not to go away, did you?” 

“Sit down,” begged Ford. “Sit down and let me 
ask you again.” 

“No,” said Margaret. “You shan’t overlook things 
like that. I ’m going — going away from here as soon 
as I can. I ’m not ashamed and I won’t be indulged.” 

She walked towards the door. There was a need to get 
away before the tears that made her eyes smart should 
overflow and expose themselves. 

“Come back,” cried Ford. “I say — give a fellow a 
chance. Come back. I want to say something.” 

She would not answer him without facing him, even 
though it revealed the tears. 

“I ’m not coming,” she replied, and went out. 

She had fulfilled her purpose; they had all had their 
cut at her, save Dr. Jakes, who would not take his turn, 
and Mrs. Jakes, to whom that privilege was not due. 
Only one of them had swung the whip effectually and 
left a wheal whose smart endured. 

Mrs. Jakes did not count on being left out of the 
festival. Her rod was in pickle. She was on hand 
when the girl came out of her room, serene again and 
ready to meet any number of Mrs. Jakeses. 

“Oh, Miss Harding.” 

Mrs. Jakes arrested her, glancing about to see that the 
corridor was empty. 

“The doctor wishes me to tell you,” said Mrs. Jakes, 
aiming her words at the girl’s high tranquillity, “that 
312 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


he considers you had better make arrangements to re- 
move to some other establishment. You understand, of 
course ?” 

14 Of course,’ ’ agreed Margaret. 

“A month’s notice, then,” said Mrs. Jakes smoothly. 
‘‘That is usual. But if it should be convenient for you 
to go before, the doctor will be happy to meet you.” 

“Very good of the doctor,” smiled Margaret, and 
walked on, her skirts rustling. 


313 


CHAPTER XYI 


OICES below the window of her room that alter- 



v nated briskly and yet guardedly, drew Margaret 
to look out. On the stoep beneath her, Fat Mary was ex- 
changing badinage of the most elementary character 
with a dusty trooper of the Mounted Police, who stood 
on the ground under the railing with his bridle looped 
over his arm and his horse awaiting his pleasure at his 
elbow. Seen from above, the main feature of Fat Mary 
was her red-and-yellow headkerchief tied tightly over 
her large and globular skull, presenting the appearance 
of a strikingly-colored bubble at the summit of her 


person. 


“You savvy tickle ?” the trooper was saying. “By , » 
mby I come up there and tickle you. You like that 
plenty. ’ ’ 

Fat Mary giggled richly. “You lie,” she returned, 
with immense enjoyment. 

“Tickle do you good,” rejoined the trooper. 

He was a tall lathy man, with the face of a tired 
Punchinello, all nose and chin with a thin fastidious 
mouth hidden between. His eyes wandered restlessly 
while he talked as though in search of better matter for 
his interest ; and he chaffed the stout Kafir woman with 
a mechanical ease suggesting that this was a trick he 
had practised till it performed itself. The tight-fitting 
blue uniform, in spite of the dust that was thick upon 
it, and all his accoutrement of a horseman, lent a dandi- 


314 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


fled touch to his negligent attitude ; and he looked like — 
what he probably was — one of those gentlemen of sport- 
ing proclivities in whom the process of decay is arrested 
by the preservative discipline and toil of service in a 
Colonial force. 

Margaret, examining him unseen from above, with hat- 
pins in her hands, found his miserable and well-bred 
face at once repellent and distantly terrible; he seemed 
to typify so completely what she had learned to fear in 
the police, a humanity at once weak and implacable. 
His spurs, his revolver, his authority were means of in- 
flicting pain given into feeble hands to supply the place 
of power. Within a few days she had come to know 
the dread which the street-hawker in the gutter feels 
for the policeman on the pavement who can destroy him 
when he chooses. It did not call for much imagination 
to see how dreadful the bored perfunctory man below 
might become when once he had fastened on his quarry 
and had it to himself to exercise upon it the arts of which 
the revolver and the rest were the appliances. 

His presence under her window was a sign that the 
search for Kamis’ hiding-place was still going forward. 
At any hour of the day now the inmates of the Sana- 
torium might lift up their eyes to see the unusual phe- 
nomenon of a human being sharing with them the soli- 
tude and the silence. Van Zyl had high hopes of laying 
his hands on the mysterious Kafir who had committed 
the crime of being incomprehensible to nervous kraals, 
whose occupants had a way of shaking off wonder and 
alarm by taking exercise with their weapons among the 
cattle of their neighbors. The Sanatorium, under his 
orders, was being watched for any indications of mes- 
sages passing between Margaret and the Kafir, and the 
315 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


dusty, armed men came and went continually, a succes- 
sion of drilled shoulders, tanned, unconcerned faces, and 
expressionless eyes puckered against the sun’s stare. 

Their chief effect was to keep Margaret in a state of 
anxious fear lest their search should be successful, and 
she should be a witness of their return, riding past at 
the walk with a handcuffed figure trudging helplessly 
before them. She saw in painful dreams the dust that 
rose about them cloudily and the prisoner’s bowed back 
as he labored to maintain the pace. The worst of 
the dreams followed their progress to a moment when 
the man on foot flagged, or perhaps fell, and one of the 
riders pressed forward with a foot disengaged from its 
stirrup and the spur lifted to rowel him to livelier 
efforts. Such was the fruit of Yan Zyl’s pregnant word 
when he spoke of prisoners who had had “the kick 
taken out of them.” 

She had had no opportunity of seeing Paul, to send 
through him a warning message to Kamis, since her in- 
terview with Van Zyl ; but on this day she had glimpsed 
him from the stoep, as he moved about among the farm 
buildings, and she lost no time in preparing to go to 
him. She was putting on her hat as she watched the 
trooper and Fat Mary. 

The couple of them were still at work upon their flirta- 
tion when she came out of the Sanatorium and descended 
the steps. The man’s wandering eyes settled on her at 
once with grateful interest, and followed her as she 
went across to the path at a pace suited to the ardor of 
the sun. His Punchinello features brightened almost 
hopefully. 

Fat Mary, observing the direction of his gaze, giggled 
afresh and gave information in a whisper. 

316 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


4 4 What — her? That lady there ?” 

Fat Mary nodded corroboratively. The trooper swore 
softly in mere amazement. 

4 4 You ’re sure that ’s her?” he demanded. 4 'Well, 
I ’m— ” 

He stared at Margaret’s receding back with a frown 
of perplexity, then drew the reins over his horse’s head 
and prepared to mount. 

"You go now?” asked Fat Mary, disappointed at the 
effect of her news. 

4 4 You bet,” was the answer, as he swung up into the 
saddle and moved his horse on. 

Margaret turned as the sound of hoofs padding on the 
dust approached from behind and was met by a salute 
and bold avaricious eyes above the drooping beak. He 
reined up beside her, looking down from the height of 
his saddle at her. 

"Miss Harding, isn’t it?” he said. 4 4 May I ask 
where you ’re goin ’ ? ” 

There was jocular invitation in his manner of saying 
it, the gallantry of a man who despises women. 

"I ’m going to the farm, there,” Margaret answered. 
The unexpected encounter had made her nervous, 
and she found herself ill at ease under his regard. 
"Why?” 

4 4 Because I ’ll ask you for the pleasure of accom- 
panyin’ you so far, if you don’t mind,” he returned. 
"I want a look at the happy man you ’re goin’ to see. 
Hope you don’t object?” 

44 1 can’t stop you,” replied Margaret. 4 4 You will do 
as you please, of course.” 

She turned and walked on, careful not to hurry her 
steps. The trooper rode at her side, and though she 
317 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

did not look up, she felt his eyes resting on her profile 
as they went. 

“Bit slow, livin’ out here, Miss Harding/ ’ he re- 
marked, after they had gone for a minute or so in silence. 
“Not what you ’ve been use to, I imagine. Found your- 
self rather short of men, didn’t you?” 

“No,” replied Margaret thoughtfully; “no.” 

“Oh, come now.” The mounted man laughed thinly, 
failing utterly to get his tolerant and good-natured ef- 
fect. “If you ’d had a supply of decent chaps to do 
the right thing by a girl as pretty as you — admire you, 
an’ flirt, and all that, I mean — you would n’t have fallen 
back on this nigger we ’re lookin’ for, would you, 
now ? ’ ’ 

This was what it meant, then, to have one’s name 
linked with that of a Kafir. She was anybody ’s game ; 
not the lowest need look upon her as inaccessible. She 
had to put a restraint upon herself to keep from quick- 
ening her pace, from breaking into a run and fleeing 
desperately from the man whose gaze never left her. 
Its persistence, though she was aware of it without see- 
ing it, was an oppression ; she imagined she could detect 
the taint of his breath blowing hot upon her as she 
walked. 

He saw the flush that rose in her cheek, and laughed 
again. 

“You needn’t answer,” he said. “I can see for my- 
self I ’m right. Lord, whenever was I wrong when it 
came to spottin’ a girl’s feelings? Say, Miss Harding 
— did n’t I hit it first shot ? Of course I did. 

“Of course I did,” he repeated two or three times, 
congratulating himself. “Trust me. 

“I say,” he began again presently. “This little 

318 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


meetin’ — I hope it ’s not goin’ to be the last. I expect 
yon ’ve learnt by now that niggers have their drawbacks, 
and it is n ’t a safe game for you to play. People simply 
won’t stand it, you know. Now, what you want is a 
friend who ’ll stand by you and show you how to make 
the row blow over. With savvy and a touch of tact, it 
can be done. Now, Miss Harding — I don’t know your 
Christian name, but I fancy we could understand each 
other if you ’d only look up and smile. ’ ’ 

The farm was not far now. Paul had seen them com- 
ing and was standing at gaze to watch them approach, 
with that appearance of absorbed interest which almost 
anything could bring out. Soon he must see, he could 
not fail to see, that she was in distress and needing aid, 
and then he would come forward to meet them. 

4 ‘No?” the trooper inquired, cajolingly. “Come now 
— one smile. No? No?” 

He waited for an answer. 

“I wouldn’t try the haughty style,” he said then. 
“Lord, no. You wouldn’t find it pay. After the nig- 
ger business, haughtiness is off. What I ’m offering you 
is more than most chaps would offer; it isn’t every- 
body ’ll put on a nigger’s boots, not by a long sight. 
Now, we don’t want to be nasty about it, do. we? One 
smile, or just a word to say we understand each other, 
and it ’ll be all right.” 

It was insupportable, but now Paul was coming to- 
wards them, shyly and not very fast. 

“Who ’s this kid?” demanded the trooper. “Quick, 
now, before he ’s here. Look up, or he ’ll smell a rat.” 

Margaret raised her eyes to his slowly, cold fear and 
disgust mingling in her mind. He met her with a smile 
in which relief was the salient character. 

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“When Mr. Van Zyl hears how you have insulted me,” 
she began trembling. 

“Eh?” He stared at her suspiciously. “ ' Van Zyl ? ’ ’ 
He seemed suddenly enlightened. “I say, I couldn’t 
tell you ’d — you ’d made your arrangements. Could I, 
now ? I would n’t have dreamed — look here, Miss Hard- 
ing; I ’m awfully sorry. Couldn’t we agree to forget 
all this? You can’t blame a chap for trying his 
luck. ’ ’ 

She did not entirely understand ; she merely knew that 
what he said must be monstrous. No clean thing could 
issue from that hungry, fastidious mouth. She walked 
on, leaving him halted and staring after her, perturbed 
and apprehensive. His patient horse stood motionless 
with stretched neck; he sat in the saddle erect as to the 
body, with the easy secure seat which drill had made 
natural to him, but with the Punchinello face drooped 
forward, watching her as she went. He saw her meet 
Paul, saw the pair of them glance towards him and then 
turn their backs and walk down to the farm together. 
Pain, defeat and patience expressed themselves in his 
countenance, as in that of an ignoble Prometheus. Pres- 
ently he pulled up the docile horse’s head with a jerk 
of the bridoon. 

“My luck,” he said aloud, and swung his horse about. 

Paul had not time to question Margaret as to her 
trouble, for she spoke before he could frame his slow 
words. 

“Paul,” she cried, “I want to speak to you. But — - 
oh, can I sit down somewhere? I feel — I feel — I must 
sit down.” 

She looked over her shoulder nervously, and Paul’s 
glance followed. 


320 


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“Is it him?” he inquired. * ‘Sit here. I ’ll go to 
him.” 

“ No,” she said vehemently. “Don’t. You mustn’t. 
Let ’s go to your house. I want to sit down indoors.” 

Her senses were jangled ; she felt a need of relief from 
the empty immensity of sun and earth that surrounded 
her. 

“Come on,” said Paul. “We ’ll go in.” 

He did not offer her his arm ; it was a trick he had yet 
to learn. He walked at her side between the kraals, and 
brought her to the little parlor which housed and was 
glorified by Mrs. du Preez’s six rosewood chairs, uphol- 
stered in velvet, sofa to match, rosewood center-table 
and the other furniture of the shrine. He looked at her 
helplessly as she sank to a seat on the “sofa to match.” 

“You want some water,” he said, with an inspiration, 
and vanished. 

Margaret had time somewhat to recover herself before 
he returned with his mother and the water. 

Mrs. du Preez needed no explanations. 

“Now you ’ll have a bit of respect for our sun, Miss 
Harding,” she said, after a single, narrow-eyed look at 
the girl. “Hand that water here, Paul; you didn’t 
bring it for show, did you? Well, then. And just you 
let me take off this hat, Miss Harding. Bond Street, 
I ’ll bet a pound. They don’t build for this sun in 
Bond Street. Now jus’ let me wet this handkerchief 
and lay it on your forehead. Now, ain’t that better?” 

She turned her head to drive a fierce whisper at 
Paul. 

4 ‘ Get out o ’ this. Come in by an ’ by. ” 

“Thanks awfully.” Margaret shivered as the drip- 
ping handkerchief pressed upon her brow let loose drops 
si 321 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


that gravitated to her neck and zigzagged under the col- 
lar of her blouse. 1 ‘ I ’m feeling much better now. I ’d 
rather sit up, really/ ’ 

‘ ‘So long as you haven’t got that tight feeling,” con- 
ceded Mrs. du Preez. 

She stood off, watching the girl in a manner that ex- 
pressed something striving within her mind. 

“All right now?” she asked, when Margaret had got 
rid of the wet handkerchief. 

“Quite,” Margaret assured her. “Thanks ever so 
much. ’ ’ 

Mrs. du Preez arranged the glass and jug neatly upon 
the iron tray on which they had made their appearance. 

“Miss Harding,” she said suddenly. “I know.” 

“ Oh ? What do you know ? ’ ’ inquired Margaret. 

Mrs. du Preez glanced round to see that Paul had 
obeyed her. 

“I know all about it,” she answered, with reassuring 
frowns and nods. “Your Fat Mary told my Christian 
Kafir and she told me. About — about Kamis ; you know. ’ ’ 

“I see.” 

The story had the spreading quality of the plague ; it 
was an infection that tainted every ear, it seemed. 

“You mean — you ’d like me to go?” suggested Mar- 
garet. 

“No! No! no!” 

Mrs. du Preez brought both hands into play to aid her 
face in making the negatives emphatic. “ Go ? Why, if 
it was n’t for the mercy of God I ’d be in the same box 
myself. I would — Me ! I ’ve got nothing to come the 
heavy about, even if I was the sort that would do it. So 
now you know,” 


322 


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‘ * I don ’t understand, ’ ’ said Margaret. “Do you mean 
that you — ?” 

“I mean/’ interrupted Mrs. du Preez, “that if it 
was n’t for that Kafir I ’d ha’ been hopping in hell be- 
fore now ; and if people only knew it — gosh ! I ’d have 
to hide. I wanted to tell you so ’s you should know there 
was some one that could n ’t throw any stones at you. 
You ’re beginnin’ to find things rather warm up there, 
are n’t you?” 

Margaret smiled. The true kindness of Mrs. du 
Preez ’s intention moved her ; charity in this quarter was 
the last thing she had expected to find. 

“A little warm,” she agreed. “Everybody ’s rather 
shocked just now, and Mrs. Jakes has given me notice to 
leave. ’ ’ 

“Has she?” demanded Mrs. du Preez. “Well, I sup- 
pose it was to be expected. I ’ve known that woman now 
for more years than I could count on my fingers, and 
I ’ve always had my doubts of her. She ’s no more 
got the spirit of a real lady than a cow has. That ’s 
where it is, Miss Harding. She can’t understand that a 
lady ’s got to be trusted. For two pins I ’d tell her so, 
the old cross-eyed skellpot. So you’re going? Well, 
you won ’t be sorry. ’ ’ 

“But — how did you come across Kamis?” asked Mar- 
garet. 

“Oh, it ’s a long story. I was clearin’ out of here — 
doing a bolt, you know, an’ I got into trouble with a fel- 
ler that was with me. It was a feller named Bailey that 
was stoppin’ here,” explained Mrs. du Preez, who had 
not heard the whole history of Margaret’s exposure. 
“He was after a bit of money I ’d got with me, and he 
323 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

was startin’ in to kick me when np jumps that nigger 
and down goes Bailey. See?” 

Margaret saw only vaguely, but she nodded. 

“That ’s Bailey,” said Mrs. du Preez, drawing her at- 
tention to the Boy’s photograph. “Christian warned 
me against smashing it when I wanted to. He ’s got 
notions, Christian has. ‘Leave it alone,’ he says; ‘we ’re 
not afraid of it.’ So of course I had to; but I ’d be 
more ’n a bit thankful if it was gone. I can’t take any 
pleasure in the room with it there.” 

“I could help you in that, perhaps,” suggested Mar- 
garet. “You ’ve helped me. It was sweet of you to tell 
me what you did, the friendliest thing I ever knew.” 

“I ’d rather you didn’t speak about it to Christian,” 
objected Mrs. du Preez. 

‘ ‘ I did n ’t mean to, ’ ’ Margaret assured her, rising. 

She crossed to the narrow mantel as though to look 
more particularly at Boy Bailey’s features. She lifted 
the plush frame from its place. 

“There are people who would call this face handsome,” 
she remarked. 

“Heaps,” agreed Mrs. du Preez. “In his best days, 
he ’d got a style — Lord ! Miss Harding. ’ ’ 

Margaret had let the photograph fall face-downwards 
on the edge of the fender and the crash of its glass cut 
Mrs. du Preez short. She stared at Margaret in aston- 
ishment as the girl put a foot on the picture and broke it. 

“Wasn’t that clumsy of me?” she asked, smiling. 

“Well, of all the cheek,” declared Mrs. du Preez, 
slowly. “I never guessed what you were after. But I 
don’t know what Christian will say.” 

“He can’t mend it, anyhow,” replied Margaret. 
“You did want it gone, didn’t you?” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“You bet,” said Mrs. du Preez. “But — but that was 
a dodge. Here, let ’s make sure of it while we ’re at it ; 
those two pieces could be easily stuck together. I ’ll 
stamp some of that smashed glass into it. Still — I 
should think, after this, you ’d be able to hold your own 
with Mrs. Jakes.” 

She kicked the pieces of the now unrepairable photo- 
graph into a little heap. 

“I ’ll leave it like that for Christian to see,” she said. 
“But, look here. Didn’t you want to speak to Paul? 
You ’ll be wondering when I ’m goin’ to give you a 
chance. I ’ll just tap the drum for him.” 

Paul ’s whistle from behind the house answered the first 
strokes and Mrs. du Preez, with an unusual delicacy, did 
not return to the parlor with him. 

“You ’re all right now?” he asked, as he entered. 

“Oh, yes. That was nothing,” said Margaret. 

Paul took his stand by the window, leaning with a 
shoulder against it, looking abstractedly at her face, and 
waiting to hear her speak. 

“Paul,” asked Margaret, “do you know where Kamis 
is now?” 

“Yes,” he said. 

“Do you see him ? Can you speak to him for me?” 

“I don’t see him much now,” answered Paul. “That 
is because the policemen are riding about looking for him. 
But I can speak to him to-night. ’ ’ 

“He must take care not to be caught,” said Margaret. 
“They ’re very anxious to find him just now. You ’ve 
heard, Paul, that they ’ve found out about me and him?” 

“Ye-es,” answered Paul. “I heard something.” 

“ It ’s true, ’ ’ said Margaret. “ So I ’ve got to go away 
from here. They won’t have me at the Sanatorium any 
325 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


longer and the police are watching to see if Kamis comes 
anywhere near me and to catch him if he does. You 
must warn him to keep right away, Paul. He must n ’t 
send any messages, even. ’ ’ 

“I will tell him, ’ ’ said Paul. “But — you are going 
away ? To England ? ’ ’ 

“Perhaps,” replied Margaret. “I expect I shall have 
to now. They tell me that people won’t let me live in 
South Africa any more. I ’m a sort of leper, and I must 
keep my distance from healthy people. So we shan’t 
see each other again after a few more days. Are you 
sorry, Paul?” 

He reddened boyishly and fidgeted. 

“Oh, it is best for you to go,” he answered, uncom- 
fortably. 

“Paul! But why?” 

“It ’s — it ’s not your place,” he said, facing the dif- 
ficulty of putting an elusive thought into words. ‘ ‘ This 
country — people don’t know what ’s good and what ’s 
bad — and there isn’t enough people. Not like Lon- 
don. You should go to London again. Kamis was 
telling me — theaters and streets and pictures to see, 
and people everywhere. He says one end of London 
is just like you and the other end is like that Bailey. 
That is where you should go — London, not here. I 
will go to London soon, too. ’ ’ 

“I see,” said Margaret. “I was afraid at first that 
you were sick of me too, Paul. I needn’t have been 
afraid of that, need I? Wouldn’t it be fine if we 
could meet in London?” 

“We can,” said Paul seriously. “I have got a hun- 
dred and three pounds, and I will go.” 

“That ’s a good deal,” said Margaret. 

326 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


l< It ’s a lot,” he agreed. “My father gave it to me 
the other day, all tied up tight in a little dirty bundle, 
and there was my mother’s marriage lines in it too. 
He said he didn’t mean me to have those but the 
money was for me. It was on the table in the morning 
and he rolled it over to me and said: ‘Here, Paul. 
Take this and don’t bring any more of your tramps 
in the house. ’ That was because I brought that 
Bailey here, you know. So now — soon — I will go 
to London and Paris and make models there. Kamis 
says — ” 

“What?” asked Margaret. 

“He says I will think my eyes have gone mad at 
first when I see London. He says that coming to 
Waterloo Station will be like dying and waking in an- 
other world. But he says too — blessed are the pure 
in heart, for they will see God even in Waterloo 
Station.” 

“He ought to go back himself,” said Margaret, with 
conviction. “He ’s wasted here.” 

“Will you see him before you go?” asked Paul. 

“No,” said Margaret. “No; I daren’t. Tell him, 
Paul, please, that I ’d like to see him ever so much, 
but that it ’s too dangerous. Say I wish him well with 
all my heart, and that I hope most earnestly that he 
won’t let himself be caught.” 

“He won’t,” said Paul, with confidence. “But I ’ll 
tell him.” 

“And say,” continued Margaret — “say he ’s not to 
feel sorry about what has happened to me. Tell him 
I ’m still proud that I was his friend, and that all this 
row is worth it. Can you remember all that?” 

Paul nodded. “I can remember,” he assured her. 
327 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

“It is — it is so fine to hear, for me, too. I won’t forget 
anything.” 

“ Please don’t, if you can help it. I want him to 
have that message,” said Margaret. “And now, Paul, 
I ’ll have to say good-by to you, because I shan’t come 
here again.” 

Paul stood upright as she rose. His slow smile was 
very friendly. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You are going to 
London, and soon I shall see you there.” 

“I wonder,” she said, giving him her hand. “I ’ll 
write you my address and send it you before I leave, 
Paul. ’ ’ 

“I should find you anyhow,” he assured her confi- 
dently. 

Mrs. du Preez, also, had to be taken leave of, and shed 
a tear or so at the last. In her, a strong emotion 
found a safety valve in ferocity. 

“As for that Jakes woman,” she said, in conclusion, 
“you tell her from me, Miss Harding — from me, mind, 
— that it wouldn’t cost me any pain to hand her a 
slap acrost the mug. ’ ’ 

Margaret went homeward through the late light 
dreamily. Far away, blurred by the sun’s horizontal 
rays, the figure of the trooper occupied the empty 
distance, no larger than an ant against the flushed sky. 
Peace and melancholy were in the mood of the hour, 
a cue to lead her thoughts towards sadness. It caused 
her to realize that she would not leave it all without 
a sense of loss. She would miss its immensity, its effect 
of setting one at large on an earth without trimmings 
under a heaven without clouds, to make the most of 
one’s own humanity. It would be a thing she had 
328 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


known in part, but which henceforth she would never 
know even as she herself was known. She could never 
now find the word that expressed its wonder and its ap- 
peal. 

Mr. Samson was on the stoep as she went up the 
steps to enter the Sanatorium. He put down his paper 
and toddled forward to open the door for her, anxiously 
punctilious. 

“Ford was down for tea,” he said. “Askin’ for 
you, he was.” 

“Oh, was he?” replied Margaret inanely, and went 
in. 


At supper that evening in the farmhouse kitchen, 
Christian du Preez, glancing up from the food which 
occupied him, observed by a certain frowning delibera- 
tion on Paul’s face, that his son was about to deliver 
himself in speech. 

“Well, what is it, Paul?” he inquired encouragingly. 

Paul looked up with a faint surprise at having his 
purpose thus forecasted. 

“That money,” he said doubtfully. 

“Oh.” The Boer glanced uneasily at his wife, who 
laid down her knife and fork and began to listen with 
startled interest. 

“That ’s all right,” said Christian. “Do what you 
like with it. Go to the dorp and spend it; it ’s yours. 
Now eat your supper.” 

“I am going to London,” said Paul then, seriously, 
and having got it off his mind, said, heard and done 
with, he resumed his meal with an appetite. 

“London,” echoed the Boer. “London?” exclaimed 
Mrs. du Preez. 


329 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

( 

“Yes,” said Paul. “To make models. Here there 
is nobody to see them.” 

“He is gone mad,” said the Boer with conviction. 
“He has been queer for a long time and now he is 
mad. Paul, you are mad.” 

“Am I?” asked Paul respectfully, and continued to 
eat. 

His father and mother had much to say, agitatedly, 
angrily, persuasively, but people were always saying 
things to him that had no real meaning. It was ridic- 
ulous, for instance, that the Boer should calk him a 
dumb fool because at the close of a lecture he should 
ask for more coffee. He wasn’t dumb and didn’t be- 
lieve he was a fool. People were n ’t fools because they 
went to London ; on the contrary, they had to be rather 
clever and enterprising to get there at all. And at 
the back of his mind dwelt the thing he could not hope 
to convey and did not attempt to — a sense he had, 
which warmed and uplifted him, of nearing a goal after 
doubt and difficulty, the Pisgah exaltation and tender- 
ness, the confidence that to him and to the work which 
his hands should perform, Canaan was reserved, 
virgin and welcoming. It was a strength he had in 
secret, and the Boer knew himself baffled when after 
an hour of exhortation to be sane and explanatory and 
obedient and comprehensible, he looked up and said, 
very thoughtfully: 

“In London, people pay a shilling to look at clays, 
father.” 


330 


CHAPTER XYII 


F ORD’S return to normal existence coincided with 
the arrival of mail-morning, when the breakfast 
menu was varied by home letters heaped upon the 
plates. Mrs. Jakes had one of her own this morning 
and was very conscious of it, affecting to find her cor- 
respondent’s caligraphy hard to read. Old Mr. Sam- 
son had his usual pile and greeted him from behind 
a litter of torn wrappers and envelopes. 

4 ‘Hullo, Ford,” he cried, “up on your pins, again? 
Feelin’ pretty bobbish — what?” 

“Nice way you ’ve got of putting it,” replied Ford, 
taking his seat before the three letters on his plate. 
“I ’m all right, though. You seem fairly well sup- 
plied with reading-matter this morning.” 

“The usual, the usual,” said Mr. Samson airily. 
“People gone to the country; got time to write, don’t 
you know. Here ’s a feller tells me that the foxes down 
his way are simply rotten with mange.” 

“Awful,” said Ford, glancing at the first of his own 
letters. “And here ’s a feller tells me that he ’s sent 
in the enclosed account nine times and must press for 
a cheque without delay. What ’s the country coming 
to? Eh?” 

“You be blowed,” retorted Mr. Samson, and fell 
again to his reading. 

From behind the urn Mrs. Jakes made noises indica- 
tive of lady-like exasperation. 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“The way some people write, you ’ d never believe 
they ’d been educated and finished regardless of ex- 
pense,’ ’ she declared. “There ’s a word here — she ’s 
telling me about a lady I used to know in Town — and 
whether she suffers from her children (though I never 
knew she was married) or from a chaplain, I can’t 
make out. Can you see what it is, Mr. Ford? There, 
where I ’m pointing?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Ford. “It ’s worse than you think, 
Mrs. Jakes. It ’s chilblains.” 

“O-oh.” Mrs. Jakes was enlightened. “Why, of 
course. I remember now. Even when she was a girl 
at school, she used to suffer dreadfully from them. I 
thought she couldn’t have been married, with such 
feet. But is n ’t it a dreadful way to write ? ’ ’ 

She would have indulged them with further informa- 
tion regarding the lady who suffered, but Margaret’s 
entrance drove her back behind the breastwork of the 
urn. She distrusted her own correctness when the 
girl’s eyes were on her, and her sure belief that Mar- 
garet had revealed herself as anything but correct by 
every standard which Mrs. Jakes could apply, failed to 
reassure her. 

“Good morning, Miss Harding,” she said frostily. 
“You will take coffee?” 

“Good morning,” replied Margaret, passing to her 
place at the table. “Yes, it is lovely.” 

“Er — the coffee?” asked Mrs. Jakes, suspicious and 
uncomprehending. 

“Oh, coffee. Yes, please,” said Margaret. “I 
thought you said something about the weather. ’ ’ 

Ford grinned at the letter he was reading and 
greeted her quietly. 


332 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Glad you ’re better,” she replied, not returning his 
smile, and turned at once to the letters which awaited 
her. 

He was watching her while she sorted them, examin- 
ing first the envelopes for indications of what they 
held. One seemed to puzzle her, and she took it up to 
decipher the postmark. Then she set it down and 
opened the fattest of all, a worthy, linen-enveloped 
affair, containing a couple of typewritten sheets as well 
as a short letter. She read it perfunctorily and looked 
through the business-like typescripts impatiently, 
folded them all up again and tucked them back into 
the linen envelope. Then followed the others, and the 
one with the smudged postmark last of all. She 
scrutinized the outside of this again before she opened 
it; it was not an English letter, but one from some 
unidentifiable postal district in South Africa. At last 
she opened it, and drew out the dashing black scrawl 
which it harbored. A glance at the end of the letter 
seemed to leave her in the dark, and Ford saw her deli- 
cate brows knit as she began to read. 

He found himself becoming absorbed in the mere 
contemplation of her. He was aware of a character in 
her presence at once familiar to him by long study and 
intangible; it had the quality of bloom, that a touch 
destroys. She had hair that coiled upon her head and 
left its shape discernible, and beneath it a certain 
breadth and frankness of brow upon which the eye- 
brows were etched marvelously. She was like a lantern 
which softens and tempers the impetuous flame within 
it, and turns its ardor into radiance. The Kafir and 
the shame and the imprudence of that affair did not 
suffice to darken that light ; at the most, they could but 
333 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

cause it to waver and make strange shadows for a 
moment, like the candle one carries, behind a guarding 
hand, through a windy corridor. It did not cool the 
strong flame that was the heart of the combination. 

Suddenly Margaret laid the letter down. She put 
it back on her plate with an abrupt gesture and he 
noted that she had gone pale, and that her mouth was 
wry as though with a bitter taste. She even withdrew 
her fingers from the sheet with exactly the movement 
of one who has by accident set his hand on some unex- 
pected piece of foulness. 

She went on with her breakfast quietly enough, but 
she did not look at her letters again. They were per- 
haps the first letters in years to come to the Sanatorium 
and be dismissed with a single perusal. 

“Fog in London,’ ’ said Mr. Samson, suddenly. 
“Feller writes as though it was the plague. He 
does n ’t know what it is to have too much bally sun. ’ 9 

The glare that shone through the window returned 
his glance unwinking. 

“Fog?” responded Mrs. Jakes, alertly. “That is 
bad. Such dreadful things happen in fogs. I remem- 
ber a lady at Home, who was divorced afterwards, who 
lost her way in a fog and didn’t get home for two 
days, and even then she had somebody else’s umbrella 
and could no more remember where she ’d got it than 
fly. And she was so confused and upset that all she 
could say to her husband was: 4 Ed,’ — his name was 
Edwin — ‘Ed, did you remember to have your hair 
cut?’ ” 

“Had he remembered?” demanded Mr. Samson. 

“I think not,” replied Mrs. Jakes. “What with 
the worry, and the things the servant said, I don’t 
334 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


believe he ’d thought of it. He always did wear it 
rather long.” 

1 1 Think of that,” said Mr. Samson, with solemn sur- 
prise. 

Margaret finished her breakfast in silence and then 
gathered up her letters. Ford thought that as she 
picked up the sheet which had distressed her, she 
glanced involuntarily at him. But the look conveyed 
nothing and she departed in silence. He was careful 
not to follow her too soon. 

It was not difficult to find her. For some two hours 
after breakfast was over, the only part of the Sana- 
torium which it was possible to inhabit with comfort 
was the stoep. The other rooms were given over to 
Fat Mary and her colleagues for the daily ceremony 
known as “doing the rooms,” a festival involving ex- 
cursions and alarms, skylarking, breakages and fights. 
To seek seclusion in the drawing-room, for example, 
was to be subjected to a cinematograph impression of 
surprised and shocked black faces peering round the 
door and vanishing, to scuffling noises on the mat and 
finally to hints from Mrs. Jakes herself: “ Would you 
mind the girls just sweeping round your feet? 
They ’re rather behindhand this morning.” 

Margaret had betaken herself and her chair to the 
extreme end of the stoep, beyond the radius of Ford’s 
art and Mr. Samson’s meditations. Her letters were 
in her lap, but she was not looking at them. She was 
gazing straight before her at the emptiness which 
stretched out endlessly, affording no perch for the eye 
to rest on, an everlasting enigma to baffle sore minds. 

Ford was innocent of stratagem in his manner of 
approach. 


335 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I say,” he said, and she looked up listlessly. “I 
say — I ’m sorry. Can’t we make it up?” 

“All right,” she answered. 

He looked at her closely. 

“But is it all right?” he persisted. “You ’re hurt 
about something ; I can see you are ; so it ’s not all right 
yet. Look here, Miss Harding: you were wrong about 
what I was thinking.” 

“Oh no.” Margaret shifted in her chair with a tired 
impatience. “I wasn’t wrong,” she answered. “I 
could see; and I think you should n’t go back on it now. 
The least you can do is stand by your beliefs. You 
won’t find yourself alone. I had a letter from some 
one this morning who would back you up to the last 
drop of his blood, I ’m sure. ’ ’ 

“Who ’s that?” 

“I don’t know,” she answered. “It’s my first 
anonymous letter. Somebody has heard about me and 
therefore writes. He thinks just as you do. Would 
you like to see it?” 

She handed him the bold, crowded scrawl and sat back 
while he leaned on the rail to read it. 

At the second sentence in the letter he looked up 
sharply and restrained an ejaculation. She was not 
looking at him, but a tinge of pink had risen in her 
quiet face. 

It was an anonymous letter of the most villainous 
kind. Something like horror possessed him as he real- 
ized that her grave eyes had perused its gleeful and 
elaborate offense. The abominable thing was a vileness 
fished from the pit of a serious and blackguard mind. 
It had the baseness of ordure, and a sort of frivolity 
that transcended commonplace evil. 

336 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I say,” he cried, before the end of the ingenious 
thing was reached. “ Yon have n’t read this through?” 

“Not quite,” she answered. 

“I — I should think not.” 

With quick nervous jerks of his fingers which be- 
trayed the hot anger he felt, he tore the letter into 
strips and the strips again into smaller fragments, 
and strewed them forth upon the stiff dead shrubs 
below. 

“It ’s getting about, you see,” said Margaret, with a 
sigh. “I suppose, before I manage to get away, I shall 
be accustomed to things of that kind.” 

“But this is awful,” cried Ford. “I can't bear 
this. You, of all people, to have to go through all 
that this means and threatens — it ’s awful. Miss 
Harding, let me apologize, let me grovel, let me do 
anything that ’ll give you the feeling that I ’m with you 
in this. You can’t face it alone — you simply can’t. 
I’m sorry enough to — to kick myself. Can’t you let 
me stand in with you ? ’ ’ 

He stopped helplessly before Margaret’s languid 
calm. She was not in the least stirred by his appeal. 
She lay back in her chair listlessly, and only withdrew 
her eyes from the veld to look at him as he ceased to 
speak. 

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she said indifferently. 
“It ’s a silly business. Don’t worry about it, please.” 

“But — ” began Ford, and stopped. “You mean — 
you won’t have me with you, anyhow?” he asked. 
“What you thought I thought, upstairs — you can’t 
forget that? Is that it?” 

She smiled slowly, and he stared at her in dismay. 
Nothing could have expressed so clearly as that faint 
22 337 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

smile her immunity from the passion that stirred in 
him. 

“Perhaps it ’s that,” she answered, always in the 
same indifferent, low voice. “I ’m not thinking more 
about it than I can help.” 

“I didn’t think any harm of you,” Ford protested 
earnestly, leaning forward from his perch on the rail 
and striving to compel her to look at him. “We ’ve 
been good friends, and you might have trusted me 
not to think evil of you. I simply didn’t understand 
— nothing else. You can’t seriously be offended be- 
cause you imagined that I was thinking certain 
thoughts. It isn’t fair.” 

“I ’m not offended,” she answered. 

“Hurt, then,” he substituted. “Anything you 
please. ’ ’ 

He stepped down from his seat and walked a few 
paces away, with his hands deeply sunk in his pockets, 
and then walked back again. 

“I say,” he said abruptly; “it ’s a question of what 
I think of you, it seems. Let me tell you what I do 
think.” 

Margaret turned her face towards him. He was 
frowning heavily, with an appearance of injury and 
annoyance. He spoke in curt jets. 

“It ’s only since I ’ve known you that I ’ve really 
worried over being a lunger,” he said. “The Army 
— I could stand that. But seeing you and talking to 
you, and knowing I ’d no right to say a word — no right 
to try and lead things that way, even, for your sake 
as much as mine — it ’s been hard. Because — this is 
what I do think — it ’s seemed to me that you were 
worth more than everything else. I ’d have given the 
338 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

world to tell you so, and ask you — well, you know what 
I mean.” 

Margaret was not so steeped in sorrows but she 
could mark this evasion of a plain statement with amuse- 
ment. 

Ford, staring at her intently, clicked with impatience. 

‘ 1 Well, then,” he said in the tone of one who is 
goaded to extreme lengths; “well then, Miss — er — 
Margaret — ” he paused, seemingly struck by a pleas- 
ant flavor in the name as he spoke it — “Margaret,” he 
repeated, less urgently; “I ’m hanged if I know how 
to say it, but — I love you.” 

There was an appreciable interval while they re- 
mained gazing at each other, he breathless and discom- 
posed, she grave and unresponding. 

“Do you?” she said at last. “But — ” 

“I do,” he urged. “On my soul, I do. Margaret, 
it ’s true. I ’ve been — loving — you for a long time. 
I thought perhaps you might care a little, too, some- 
times, and I ’d have told you if it wasn’t for this 
chest of mine. That ’s what I meant when you said 
you were going away and I asked you to stay. I 
thought you understood then.” 

“I did understand,” she replied, and sat thoughtful. 

She wondered vaguely at the apathy that mastered 
her and would not suffer her to feel even a thrill. 
Some virtue had departed out of her and drawn with 
it the whole liveliness of her mind and spirit, so that 
what remained was mere deadness. She knew, in 
some subconscious and uninspiring manner, that Ford 
was what he had always been, with passion added to 
him; he was waiting in a tension of suspense for her 
to answer, with his thin face eager and glowing. It 
339 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


should have moved her with compassion and liking for 
the stubborn, faithful, upright soul she knew him to 
be. But the letter, the confident approaches of the 
Punchinello policeman, and even Mrs. Jakes’ ill-re- 
strained joy in bidding her leave the place, had been 
so many blows upon her function of susceptibility. 
The accumulation of them had a little stunned her, and 
she was not yet restored. 

Ford saw her lips hesitate before she spoke, and his 
heart beat more quickly. 

She looked up at him uncertainly and made a move- 
ment with her shoulders like a shrug. 

“Oh, I can’t,” she said suddenly. “No, I can’t. 
It ’s no use ; you must leave me alone, please. ’ ’ 

His look of sheer amazement, of pain and bewilder- 
ment, returned to her later. It was as though he had 
been struck in the face by some one he counted on as 
a friend. He stood for an instant rooted. 

“Sorry,” he said, then. “I might have seen I was 
worrying you. Sorry.” 

His retreating feet sounded softly on the flags of 
the stoep, and she sank back in her chair, wondering 
wearily at the event and its inconsequent conclusion, 
with her eyes resting on the wide invitation of the 
veld. 

“Am I going to be ill?” was the thought that came 
to her relief. “Am I going to be ill? I ’m not really 
like this.” 

The ordeal of lunch had to be faced; she could not 
eat, but still less could she face the prospect of Mrs. 
Jakes with a tray. Afterwards, there was the dreary 
labor of writing letters to go before her to England 
and make ready the way for her return. There 
340 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


would have to be explanations of some kind, and it 
was a sure thing that her explanations would fail to 
satisfy a number of people who would consider them- 
selves entitled to comment on her movements. There 
would have to be some mystery about it, at the best* 
For the present, she could not screw herself up to the 
task of composing euphemisms. “ Expect me home by 
the boat after next. I will tell you why when I see 
you”; that had to suffice for the legal uncle, his lawful 
wife, the philosophic aunt and all the rest. 

Then came tea and afterwards dinner ; the day 
dragged like a sick snake. Dr. Jakes made mournful 
eyes at her and talked feverishly to cover his nervous- 
ness and compunction, and now and again he looked 
down the table at his wife and Mr. Samson with furtive 
malevolence. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, Mrs. 
Jakes, having made an inspection of the doctor, played 
the intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana” five times, 
and Ford and Samson spent the evening over a chess- 
board. Margaret, on the couch, found herself coming 
to the surface of the present again and again from 
depths of heavy and turgid thought, to find the inter- 
mezzo still limping along and Mr. Samson still apostro- 
phizing his men in an undertone (“Take his bally 
bishop, old girl; help yourself. No, come back — he ’ll 
have you with that knight” ). It was interminable, a 
pocket eternity. 

Then the view of the stairs sloping up to the dimness 
above and the cool air of the hall upon her neck and 
face, and the sourness of Mrs. Jakes trying to give her 
“good night” the intonation of an insult — these in- 
truded abruptly upon her straying faculties, and she 
came a little dazed into the light of the candles in her 
341 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


own room, where her eyes fell first on the breadth of 
Fat Mary’s back, as that handmaid stood at the win- 
dow with the blind in her hand and peered forth into 
the dark. As she turned, Margaret gained an impres- 
sion that the stout woman’s interest in something below 
was interrupted by her entrance. 

Fat Mary had been another of Margaret’s disap- 
pointments since the exposure. The Kafir woman’s 
manner to her had undergone a notable change. There 
was no longer the touch of reverence and gentleness 
with which she had tended Margaret at first, which 
had made endearing all her huge incompetence and 
playfulness. There had succeeded to it a manner of 
familiarity which manifested itself chiefly in the 
roughness of her handling. Margaret was being called 
upon to pay the penalty which the African native 
exacts from the European who encroaches upon the 
aloofness of the colored peoples. 

Fat Mary grinned as Margaret came through the 
door. 

4 4 Mo’ stink,” she observed, cheerfully, and pointed 
to the dressing-table. 

Margaret’s eyes followed the big black finger to 
where a bunch of aloe plumes lay between the candles 
on the white cloth, brilliantly red. The sight of them 
startled the girl sharply. She went across and raised 
them. 

“Where did they come from?” she asked quickly. 

“That Kafir,” grinned Fat Mary. “Missis’s Kafir, 
he bring ’im.” 

1 1 What did he say ? Did he give any message ? ’ ’ 

“No,” replied Fat Mary. “Jus’ stink-flowers, an’ 
give me Scotchman.” 


342 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“ Scotchman’ * is Kafir slang for a florin; it has for 
an origin a myth reflecting on the probity of a great 
race. But Margaret did not inquire; she was pon- 
dering a possible significance in this gift of hitter 
blooms. 

Fat Mary eyed her acutely while she stood in thought. 

“He say don’t tell nobody,” she remarked casually. 
“I say no fear — me! I don’t tell. Missis like that 
Kafir plenty?” 

“Mary,” said Margaret. “You can go now. I 
shan’t want you.” 

“All a-right,” replied Fat Mary willingly, and took 
herself off forthwith. She had her own uses for a 
present of spare time at this season. 

Margaret put the red flowers down as the door 
closed behind Fat Mary, and set herself before the 
mirror. There was still that haze between her thoughts 
and the realities about her, a drifting cloudiness that 
sometimes obscured them all together, and sometimes 
broke and let matters appear. 

She noted in the mirror the strange, familiar spec- 
ter of her own face, and saw that the hectic was strong 
and high on either cheek. Then the aloe plumes plucked 
at her thoughts, and the haze closed about her again, 
leaving her blind in a deep and aimless preoccupation 
in which her thoughts were no more than a pulse, re- 
peating itself to no end. Ford’s declaration and his 
manner of making it; the Punchinello countenance of 
the trooper, bestially insinuating ; Mrs. Jakes eating soup 
at Mr. Samson; — these came and went in the dreadful 
arena of her mind and made a changing spectacle that 
baffled the march of the clock-hands. 

She did not know how long she had been sitting 

343 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


when a rattle at the window surprised her into look- 
ing up. She stared absently at the blind till it came 
again. It had the sound of some one throwing earth 
from below. She rose and went across and looked out. 

It had not touched her nerves at all; it was not 
the kind of thing which could frighten her. The win- 
dow was raised at the bottom and she kneeled on the 
floor and put her head, cloudily haloed with her loose 
hair, out to the star-tempered dark. 

A whisper from below, where the whisperer stood 
invisible in the shadow at the foot of the wall, hailed 
her at once. 

4 ‘Miss Harding/ ’ it said. “Miss Harding. I ’m 
here, directly below you. ’ ’ 

She could see nothing. 

“Who is it?” she asked. 

“Hush.” She had spoken in her ordinary tones. 
“Not so loud. It ’s dangerous.” 

“Who is it?” she asked again, subduing her voice. 

“Why — Kamis, of course.” The answer came in a 
tone of surprise. “You expected me, didn’t you? 
Your light was burning.” 

“Expected you? No,” said Margaret. “I didn’t 
expect you; you oughtn’t to have come.” 

“But — ” the voice was protesting; “my message. 
It was on the paper around the aloe plumes. I par- 
ticularly told the fat Kafir woman to give you that, 
and she promised. If your light was burning, I ’d 
throw something up at your window, and if not, I ’d 
go away. That was it. ’ ’ 

The night breeze came in at the tail of his words 
with a dry rustling of the dead vines. 

“There was no paper,” said Margaret. 

344 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


The Kafir below uttered an angry exclamation which 
she did not catch. 

“If only you don’t mind,” he said, then. “I got 
Paul’s message from you and I had to try and see 
you.” 

“Yes,” said Margaret. She could not see him at 
all; under the lee of the house the night was black, 
though at a hundred paces off she could make out the 
lie of the ground in the starlight. His whispering 
voice was akin to the night. 

“Then you don’t mind?” he urged. 

“I don’t mind, of course,” said Margaret. “But it ’s 
too risky.” 

Further along the stoep there was a dim warmish 
glow through the red curtains of the study and a leak 
of faint light under the closed front door. The house 
was loopholed for unfriendly eyes and ears. There 
was no security under that masked battery for their 
privacy. At any moment Mrs. Jakes might prick up 
her ears and stand intent and triumphant to hear their 
strained whispers in cautious interchange. Margaret 
shrank from the thought of it. 

“I only want a word,” answered Kamis from the 
darkness. “I may not see you again. You won’t let 
me drop without a word — after everything?” 

Margaret hesitated. “Some one may pick up that 
paper and read your message and watch to see what 
happens. I could n ’t bear any more trouble about it. ’ ’ 

There was a pause. 

“No,” agreed Kamis, then. “No — of course. I 
did n’t think of that. I ’ll say good-by now, then.” 

Margaret strained to see him, but the night hid him 
securely. 


345 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Wait!” she called carefully. “I don’t want you 
to go away like that ; it ’s simply that this is too 
risky.” She paused. “I ’d better come down to you,” 
she said. 

She could not tell what he answered, whether joy or 
demurral, for she drew her head in at once, and then 
opened the door and went out to the corridor. 

It was good to be doing something, and to have to 
do with one whose sympathies were not strained. She 
went lightly and noiselessly down the wide stairs, and 
recognized again, with a smile, the secret aspect of the 
hall in the dark hours. There was a thread of light 
under the door of Dr. Jakes’ study, and within that 
locked room the dutiful small clock was still ticking 
off the moments as stolidly as though all moments were 
of the same value. The outer door was closed with 
a mighty lock and a great iron key, and opened with a 
clang that should have brought Dr. Jakes forth to in- 
quire. But he did not come, and she went unopposed 
out to the stoep under the metallic rustle of its dead 
vines. 

She was going swiftly, with her velvet-shod feet, to 
that distant part of it which was under the broad light 
of her window, when the Kafir appeared before her so 
suddenly that she almost ran into him. 

“Oh.” She uttered a little cry. “You startled 
me.” 

“I ’m sorry,” he answered. 

“You oughtn’t to be here,” Margaret said, “because 
it ’s dangerous. But I am glad to see you.” 

“That ’s good of you,” he said. “I got Paul’s mes- 
sage. I had to come. I had to see you once more, 
346 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

and besides, he said you were — in trouble. About 
me?” 

1 ‘Oh, yes,” said Margaret. “No end of trouble, all 
about you. An anonymous letter, notice to quit, pity 
and smiles, two suitors, one with intentions which were 
strictly dishonorable, and so on. And the simple truth 
is, I don’t care a bit.” 

“Oh, Lord!” said the Kafir. 

They were standing close to the wall, immersed in its 
shadow and sheltered from the wind that sighed above 
them and beside them and made the vines vocal. 
Neither could see the other save as a shadowy pres- 
ence. 

“I don’t care,” said Margaret, “and I refuse to 
bother about it. I ’ve got to go, of course, and I don’t 
like the feeling of being kicked out. That rankles a 
little bit, when I relax the strain of being superior and 
amused at their littleness. But as for the rest, I don’t 
care.” 

“It ’s my fault,” said the Kafir quietly. “It ’s all 
my fault. I knew all the time what the end of it would 
be; and I let it come. There ’s something mean in a 
nigger, Miss Harding. I knew it was there well enough, 
and now it shows.” 

“Don’t,” said Margaret. 

There fell a pause between them, and she could hear 
his breathing. She remembered the expression on 
Ford’s face when he had questioned her as to whether 
she did not experience a repulsion at a Kafir’s prox- 
imity to her, and tried now to find any such aversion 
in herself. They stood in an intimate nearness, so that 
she could not have moved from her place without 
347 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


touching him; but there was none. Whoever had it 
for a pedestal of well and truly laid local virtues, she 
had it not. 

“This is good-by, of course,” said the Kafir, in his 
pleasant low tones. “I ’ll never see you again, but 
I ’ll never forget how good and beautiful you were to 
me. I must n ’t keep you out here, or there are a hun- 
dred things I want to say to you ; but that ’s the chief 
thing. I ’ll never forgive myself for what has hap- 
pened, but I ’ll never forget. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ There ’s nothing you need blame yourself for, ’ ’ said 
Margaret eagerly. “It ’s been worth while. It has, 
really. You ’re somebody and you ’re doing something 
great and real, while the people in here are just shams, 
like me. Oh,” she cried softly; “if only there was 
something for me to do.” 

“For you,” repeated the Kafir. “You must be — 
what you are ; not spoil it by doing things.” 

“No,” said Margaret. “No. That ’s just chivalry 
and nonsense. I want something to do, something real. 
I want something that costs — I don’t care what. Even 
this silly trouble I ’m in now is better than being a 
smiling goddess. I want — I want — ” 

Her mind moved stiffly and she could not seize the 
word she needed. 

“It would be wasting you,” Kamis was saying. “It 
would be throwing you away.” 

“I want to suffer,” she said suddenly. “Yes — that ’s 
what I want. You suffer — don’t you? That woman 
in Capetown will have to suffer; everybody who really 
does things suffers for it; and I want to.” 

“Do you?” said Kamis, with a touch of awkward- 
ness. “But — what woman in Capetown do you mean?” 

348 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Oh, you must have heard/ ’ said Margaret impa- 
tiently. ‘‘She married a Kafir; it’s been in the 
papers/ * 

“Yes/’ he said, “I remember now.” 

“I told them all, in here, a long time ago, that in 
some city of the future there would be a monument 
to her, with the inscription: ‘She felt the future in 
her bones/ But while she lives they ’ll make her 
suffer; they ’ll never forgive her. I wish I could have 
met her before I go.” 

There was a brief pause. “Why?” asked Kamis 
then, in a low voice. 

“Why? Because she ’d understand, of course. I ’d 
like to talk to her and tell her about you. Don’t you 
see?” Margaret laughed a little. “I could tell her 
about it as though it were all quite natural and ordi- 
nary, and she ’d understand.” 

She heard the Kafir move but he did not reply at 
once. 

“Perhaps she would,” he said. “However, you ’re 
not going to meet her, so it doesn’t matter.” 

“But,” said Margaret, puzzled at the lack of re- 
sponsiveness in his tone and words, “don’t you think 
she was splendid? She must have known the price sjhe 
would have to pay; but it didn’t frighten her. Don’t 
you think it was fine?” 

“Well,” Kamis answered guardedly; “I suppose she 
knew what she was about. ’ ’ 

“Then,” persisted Margaret, “you don’t think it 
was fine ? ’ ’ 

She found his manner of speaking of the subject 
curiously reminiscent of Ford. 

Kamis uttered an embarrassed laugh. “Well,” he 
349 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


said, “I ’m afraid I ’m not very sympathetic. I sup- 
pose I ’ve lived too long among white people ; my proper 
instincts have been perverted. But the fact is, I think 
that woman was — wrong.” 

“Oh,” said Margaret. “Why?” 

“There isn’t any why,” he answered. “It ’s a mat- 
ter of feeling, you know; not of reason. Really, it 
amounts to — it ’s absurd, of course, but it ’s practically 
negrophobia. You can’t bring a black man up as a 
white man and then expect him to be entirely free from 
white prejudices. Can you?” 

“But — ” Margaret spoke in some bewilderment. 
“What ’s the use of being black,” she demanded, “if 
you ’ve got all the snobbishness of the white ? That ’s 
the way Mr. Ford spoke about it. He said he could 
feel all that was fine in it, but he wouldn’t speak to 
such a woman. I thought that was cruel.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Kamis. 

“Another time,” said Margaret deliberately, “he 
asked me whether it didn’t make my flesh creep to 
touch your hand.” 

“He thought it ought to?” 

“Yes. But it doesn’t,” said Margaret. “How does 
your negrophobia face that fact? Doesn’t it condemn 
me to the same shame as the woman in Capetown ? Or 
does it make exceptions in the case of a particular ne- 
gro?” 

“I said I didn’t reason about it,” replied Kamis. 
“I told you what I felt. You asked me and I told 
you.” 

“I wish you hadn’t,” said Margaret. “I thought 
that you at any rate — ” 

She broke off at a quick movement he made. A sud- 

350 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


den sense came to her that they two were no longer 
alone, and, with a stiffening of alarm, she turned ab- 
ruptly to see what had disturbed him. Even as she 
turned, she lifted her hand to her bosom with a premoni- 
tion of imminent disaster. 

At the head of the steps that led down to the garden, 
and in the dim light of the half-open front door, a figure 
had appeared. It came deliberately towards them, with 
one hand lifted holding something. 

“Hands up, you boy !” it said. “Up, now, or I ’ll — ” 

By the door, the face was visible, the unhappy, greedy, 
Punchinello features that Margaret knew as those of the 
policeman. Its hard eyes rested on the pair of them 
over the raised revolver that threatened the Kafir. 

The driving mists returned to beat her back from the 
spectacle; she was helpless and weak. Warmth filled 
her throat, chokingly; an acrid taste was in her mouth. 
She took two groping steps forward and fell on the flags 
at the policeman’s feet and lay there. 

From a window over their heads, there came the gur- 
gle of Fat Mary’s rich mirth. 


351 


CHAPTER XVIII 


I T was the scream of Mrs. Jakes that woke Ford, 
when, hearing unaccountable noises and attrib- 
uting them to the doctor, she went to the hall and was 
startled to see in the doorway the figure of the Kafir, 
with his hands raised strangely over his head, as though 
he were suspended 1 by the wrists from the arch, and be- 
hind him the shadowy policeman, with his revolver pro- 
truded forward into the light. She caught at her heart 
and screamed. 

Ford found himself awake, leaning up on one elbow, 
with the echo of her scream yet in his ears, and listen- 
ing intently. He could not be certain what he had 
heard, for now the house was still again; and it might 
have been some mere incident of Jakes’ transit from 
the study to his bed, into which it was better not to in- 
quire. But some quality in the cry had conveyed to 
him, in the instant of his waking, an impression of sud- 
den terror which he could not dismiss, and he continued 
to listen, frowning into the dark. 

His room was over the stoep, but at some distance 
from the front door, and for a while he heard nothing. 
Then, as his ears became attuned to the night’s acous- 
tics, he was aware that somewhere there were voices, 
the blurred and indistinguishable murmur of people 
talking. They were hardly audible at all; not a word 
transpired; he knew scarcely more than that the still- 
ness of the night was infringed. His curiosity quick- 
352 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


ened, and to feed it there sounded the step of a booted 
foot that fell with a metallic clink, the unmistakable 
ring of a spur. Ford sat upright. 

A couple of moments later, some one spoke distinctly. 

“Keep those hands up,” Ford heard, in a quick 
nasal tone ; “ or I ’ll blow your head off. ’ 9 

Ford thrust the bedclothes from his knees and got out 
of bed. He lifted the lower edge of the blind and 
leaned forth from the open window. Below him the 
stone stoep ran to right and left like a gray path, and a 
little way along it the light in the hall, issuing from the 
open door, cut across it and showed the head of the wide 
steps. Beyond the light, a group of dark figures were 
engaged with something. As he looked, the group began 
to move, and he saw that Mrs. Jakes came to the side 
of the door and stood back to give passage to four shuf- 
fling Kafirs bearing the stretcher which was part of the 
house’s equipment. There was somebody on the 
stretcher, as might have been seen from the laborious 
gait of the bearers, but the thing had a hood that with- 
held the face of the occupant as they passed in, with 
Mrs. Jakes at their heels. 

Two other figures brought up the rear and like- 
wise entered at the doorway and passed from sight. 
The first, as he became visible in the gloom beyond the 
light, was dimly grotesque; he seemed too tall and not 
humanly proportioned, a deformed and willowy giant. 
Once he was opposite the door, his height explained it- 
self; he was walking with both arms extended to their 
full length above his head and his face bowed between 
them. Possibly because the attitude strained him, he 
went with a gait as marked as his posture, a measured 
and ceremonial step as though he were walking a slow 
23 353 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


minuet. The light met him as he turned in the door- 
way and Ford, staring in bewilderment, had a momen- 
tary impression that the face between the raised arms 
was black. He disappeared, with the last of the figures 
close behind him, and concerning this one there was 
no doubt whatever. It revealed itself as a trooper of 
the Mounted Police, belted and spurred, his ‘‘smasher” 
hat tilted forward over his brows, and a revolver held 
ready in his hand, covering the back of the man who 
walked before him. 

“Here,” ejaculated Ford, gazing at the empty stoep 
where the shadow-show had been, with an accent of dis- 
may in his thoughts. The affair of Margaret and the 
Kafir leaped to his mind; all that had occurred below 
might be a new and poignant development in that bitter 
comedy, and but for a chance he might have missed it 
all. 

He was quick to make a light and find his dressing- 
gown and a pair of slippers, and he was knotting the 
cord of the former as he passed out to the long corridor 
and went swiftly to the head of the stairs, where the 
lamp that should light Dr. Jakes to his bed was yet 
burning patiently. 

The stretcher was already coming up the staircase 
and he paused and stood aside to make room for it. 
The four Kafirs were bringing it up head first, treading 
carefully and breathing harshly after the manner of 
the Kafir when he is conscious of eyes upon him. Be- 
hind them followed Mrs. Jakes, shepherding them up 
with hushing noises. A gray blanket covered the form 
in the stretcher with limp folds. 

The Kafirs saw Ford first and acknowledged his pres- 
ence with simultaneous grins. Then Mrs. Jakes saw 
354 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


him and made a noise like a startled moan, staring up 
with vexed, round eyes. 

“Oh, Mr. Ford/’ she exclaimed faintly. “Please go 
back to bed. It ’s — it ’s three o’clock in the morning.” 

Beyond and below her was the hall, in which the lamp 
had now been turned up. Ford looked past her impas- 
sively, and took in the two men who waited there, the 
Kafir, with his raised arms — trembling now with the fa- 
tigue of keeping them up — and the saturnine policeman 
with his revolver. The stretcher had come abreast of 
him and he bent to look under the hood. The bearers 
halted complaisantly that he might see, shifting their 
grips on the poles and smiling uneasily. 

Margaret’s face had the quietude of heavy lids closed 
upon the eyes and features composed in unconsciousness. 
But the mouth was bloody, and there were stains of 
much blood, bright and dreadful, on the white linen 
at her throat. For all that Ford knew what it betok- 
ened, the sight gave him a shock ; it looked like murder. 
They had broken her hair from its bonds in lifting her 
and placing her in the stretcher and now her head was 
pillowed on it and its disorder made her stranger. 

Mrs. Jakes was babbling nervously at him. 

“Mr. Ford, you really mustn’t. I wish you ’d go 
back to bed. I ’ll tell you about it in the morning, if 
you ’ll go now.” 

Ford motioned to the Kafirs to go on. 

“Where’s the doctor?” he demanded curtly. 

“Oh,” said Mrs. Jakes, “I ’ll see to all that. Mr. 
Ford, it ’s all right. You ’re keeping me from putting 
her to bed by standing talking like this. Don’t you be- 
lieve me when I say it ’s all right? Why are you look- 
ing at me like that?” 


355 


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“Is he in the study ?” asked Ford. 

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Jakes. “But I ’ll tell him, Mr. 
Ford. I — I — promise I will, if only you ’ll go back 
to bed now. I will really.” 

Ford glanced along the corridor where the Kafirs 
had halted again, awaiting instructions from Mrs. Jakes. 
There was a picture on the wall, entitled ‘ ‘ Innocence ’ ’ — 
early Victorian infant and kitten — and they were star- 
ing at it in reverent interest. 

“Better see to Miss Harding,” he said, and passed 
her and went down to the hall. She turned to see what 
he was going to do, in an agony of alertness to preserve 
the decency of the locked study door. But he went 
across to speak to the policeman, and she hurried after 
the Kafirs, to get the girl in bed and free herself to deal 
with the demand for the presence of the doctor. 

The Kafir stood with his back to the wall, near the 
big front door, closer to which was the trooper, always 
with the revolver in his hand and a manner of watching 
eagerly for an occasion to use it. Ford went to them, 
knitting his brows at the spectacle. The prisoner saw 
him as a slim young man of a not unusual type in a 
dressing-gown, with short tumbled hair; the policeman, 
with a more specialized experience, took in the quality 
of his manner with a rapid glance and stiffened to up- 
rightness. He knew the directness and aloofness that 
go to the making of that ripe fruit of our civilization, 
an officer of the army. 

“Have n’t you searched him for weapons?” demanded 
Ford. 

“No,” said the policeman, and added “sir,” as an 
afterthought. 

Ford stepped over to the Kafir and passed his hands 

356 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


down his sides and across his breast, feeling for any con- 
cealed dangers about his person. 

“Nothing,” he said. “You can handcuff him if you 
want to, but there ’s no need to keep him with his hands 
up. It ’s torture — you hear?” 

“Yes, sir,” responded the policeman again. “Put 
them down,” he bade his prisoner. 

Kamis, with a sigh, lowered his hands, wincing at the 
stiffness of his cramped arms. 

“Thank you,” he said to Ford, in a low voice. “I ’ve 
had them up — it must be half an hour.” 

“Well, you ’re all right now,” responded Ford, with 
a nod. 

He tried the study door but it was locked and there 
was no response to his knocks and his rattling of the 
handle. 

“Jakes,” he called, several times. “I say, you ’re 
wanted. Jakes, d’you hear me?” 

Kamis and the trooper watched him in silence, the 
latter with his bold, unhappy features set into something 
like a sneer. They saw him test the strength of the lock 
with a knee; it gave no sign of weakness and he stood 
considering on the mat. An idea came to him and he 
went briskly, with his long stride, to the front door. 

“I say,” called the Kafir as he went by. 

Ford paused. “Well?” 

“In case you can’t rouse him,” said the Kafir, “you 
might like to know that I am a doctor — M. B., London. ” 

“Are you?” said Ford thoughtfully. “You ’re 
Kamis, aren’t you?” 

“Yes,” answered the Kafir. 

“I ’ll let you know if there ’s anything you can do,” 
said Ford. 


357 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


The contrast between the Kafir’s pleasant, English 
voice and his negro face was strange to him also. But 
stranger yet, he could not in the presence of the con- 
temptuous policeman speak the thing that was in his 
mind and tell the Kafir that he was to blame for the 
whole business. The voice, the address, the manner of 
the man were those of his own class ; it would have been 
like quarreling before servants. 

‘ ‘ Thank you, ’ ’ said the Kafir, as Ford went out to the 
stoep. 

The sill of the study window was only three feet 
above the ground, a square of dull light filtering through 
curtains that let nothing be seen from without of the in- 
terior of the room. Ford wasted no more time in knock- 
ing and calling; he drew off a slipper and using it as a 
hammer, smashed the glass of the window close to the 
catch. Half the pane went crashing at the first blow, 
and the window was open. He threw a leg over the sill 
and was in the room. 

A bracket lamp was burning on the wall and shooting 
up a steady spire of smoke to the ceiling, where a thick 
black patch had assembled and was shedding flakes of 
smut on all below it. The slovenliness of the smoking 
lamp was suddenly an offense to him, and before he 
even looked round he went across and turned the flame 
lower. It seemed a thing to do before setting about the 
saving of Margaret’s life. 

The room was oppressively hot with a sickening close- 
ness in its atmosphere and a war of smells pervading 
it. The desk had whisky bottles, several of them, all 
partly filled, standing about its surface, with a water 
jug, a syphon and some glasses. Papers and a book or 
two had their place there also, and liquor had been spilt 
358 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


on them and a tumbler was standing on the yellow cover 
of a copy of 4 ‘Mr. Barnes of New York.” A collar 
and a tie lay on the floor in the middle of the room and 
near them was a glass which had fallen and escaped 
breakage. Dr. Jakes was in the padded patient’s chair; 
it had its back to the window, and at first Ford had im- 
agined with surprise that the room was empty. He 
looked round wonderingly, till his eyes lighted on the 
top of the doctor’s blond, childish head, showing round 
the chair. 

Dr. Jakes had an attitude of extreme relaxation. He 
had slipped forward on the smooth leather seat till his 
head lay on one of the arms and his face was upturned 
to the smirched ceiling. His feet were drawn in and 
his knees protruded ; his hands hung emptily beside him. 
The soot of the lamp had snowed on him copiously, dot- 
ting his face with black spots till he seemed to have 
broken out in some monstrous plague-rash. His lips 
were parted under his fair mustache, and the eyes were 
closed tight as if in determination not to see the ruin 
and dishonor of his life. He offered the spectacle of a 
man securely entrenched against all possible duties and 
needs, safe through the night against any attack on his 
peace and repose. 

“Jakes,” cried Ford urgently, in his ear, and shook 
him as vigorously as he could. “Jakes, you hog. Wake 
up, will you. ’ ’ 

The doctor’s head waggled loosely to the shaking and 
settled again to its former place. It was infuriating to 
see it rock like that, as though there were nothing stiffer 
than wool in the neck, and yet preserve its deep tran- 
quillity. Ford looked down and swore. There was no 
help here. 


359 


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He unlocked the door and threw it open. In the 
hall the Kafir and the policeman were as he had left 
them. 

“Come in here,” he ordered briefly. 

The Kafir came, with the trooper and the revolver 
close at his back. The latter’s eye made notes of the 
room, the glasses, the doctor, all the consistent details; 
and he smiled. 

“You ’re a doctor,” said Ford to the Kafir. “Can 
you do anything with this?” 

“This” was Dr. Jakes. Kamis made an inspection 
of him and lifted one of the tight eyelids. 

* ‘ I can make him conscious, ’ ’ he answered, ‘ 4 and sober 
in a desperate sort of fashion. But he won’t be fit for 
anything. You mustn’t trust him.” 

“Will he be able to doctor Miss Harding?” demanded 
Ford. 

“No,” answered Kamis emphatically. “He won’t.” 

“Then,” said Ford, “what the deuce are we to do?” 

The Kafir was still giving attention to Dr. Jakes, and 
was unbuttoning the neck of his shirt. He looked up. 

“If you would let me see her,” he suggested, “I ’ve 
no doubt I could do what is necessary for her.” 

Ford ran his fingers through his short stiff hair in 
perplexity. 

“I don’t see what else there is to do,” he said, frown- 
ing. 

The trooper had not yet spoken since he had entered 
the room. He and his revolver had had no share in 
events. He had been a part of the background, like 
the bottles and the soot, forgotten and discounted. Not 
even his prisoner, whose life hung on the pressure of his 
trigger-finger, had spent a glance on him. But at 
360 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Ford’s reply to the suggestion of the Kafir he restored 
himself to a central place in the drama. 

“ There will he none of that,” he remarked in his 
drawling nasal voice. 

Both turned towards him, the Kafir to meet the pistol- 
barrel pointing at his chest. The trooper’s mouth was 
twisted to a smile, and his Punchinello face was mocking 
and servile at once. 

“None of what?” demanded Ford. 

“None of your taking this nigger into women’s bed- 
rooms. He ’s my prisoner.” 

“I ’ll take all responsibility,” said Ford impatiently. 

The trooper’s smile was open now. He had Ford 
summed up for such another as Margaret, a person who 
held lax views in regard to Kafirs and white women. 
Such a person was not to be feared in South Africa. 

“No,” he said. “Can’t allow that. It isn’t done. 
This nigger ’ll stay with me.” 

“Look here,” said Ford angrily. “I tell you — ” 

“You look here,” retorted the other. “Look at this, 
will you?” He balanced the big revolver in his fist. 
“That Kafir tries to get up those stairs, and I ’ll drill a 
hole in him you could put your fist in. Understand?” 

He nodded at Ford with a sort of geniality more in- 
flexibly hostile than any scowls. 

Ford would have answered forcibly enough, but from 
the doorway came a wail, and he looked up to see Mrs. 
Jakes standing there, with a hand on each doorpost and 
her small face, which he knew as the shopwindow of the 
less endearing virtues, convulsed with a passion of alarm 
and horror. At her cry, they all started round towards 
her, with the single exception of Dr. Jakes, who lay in 
his chair with his face in that direction already, and was 
361 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


not stirred at all by her appearance on the scene that 
had created itself around him. 

“O-o-oh,” she cried. 4 ‘Eustace — after all I ’ve done; 
after all these years. Why didn’t you lock the door, 
Eustace ? And what will become of us now ? O-oh, Mr. 
Ford, I begged you to go to bed. And the Kafir to see it, 
and all. The disgrace — o-o-h.” 

The tears ran openly down her face; they made her 
seem suddenly younger and more human than Ford had 
known her to be. 

“Oh, come in, Mrs. Jakes,” he begged. “Come in; 
it ’s — it ’s all right.” 

“All right,” repeated Mrs. Jakes. “ But— everybody 
will know, soon, and how can I hold up my head ? I ’ve 
been so careful; I ’ve watched all the time — and I ’ve 
prayed — ” 

She bowed her face and wept aloud, with horrible 
sobs. 

Ford was at the end of his wits. While he pitied 
Mrs. Jakes, Margaret might be dying in her room, under 
the bland and interested eyes of Fat Mary. He turned 
swiftly to the Kafir. 

“Could you prescribe if I told you what she looked 
like ? ” he asked, in a half- whisper. ‘ ‘ Could you do any- 
thing in that way ? ’ ’ 

“Perhaps.” The Kafir was quick to understand. 
Even in the urgency of the time, Ford was thankful 
that he had to deal with a man who understood readily 
and replied at once, a man like himself. 

“Let me pass, Mrs. Jakes,” he said, and made for the 
stairs. 

As soon as he had gone, the trooper advanced to the 
desk and laid hands on a bottle and a glass. He mixed 
362 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


himself a satisfactory tumbler and turned to Mrs. Jakes. 

“The ladies, God bless ’em,” he said piously, and 
drank. 

Kamis, looking on mutely, saw the little woman blink 
at her tears and try to smile. 

“Don’t mention it,” she murmured. 

She came into the room and examined Dr. Jakes, 
bending over him to scan his tranquil countenance. 
There was nothing in her aspect of wrath or rancor; 
she was still submissive to the fate that stood at the lev- 
ers of her being and switched her arbitrarily from re- 
spectability to ruin. She seemed merely to make sure of 
features in his condition which she recognized without 
disgust or shame. 

“Would you please just help me?” she asked, looking 
up at the policeman, very politely, with her hands on the 
doctor’s shoulders. 

“Charmed,” declared the policeman, with an equal 
courtesy, and aided her to raise the drunken and uncon- 
scious man to a more seemly position in his chair. It 
was seemlier because his head hung forward, and he 
looked more as if he were dead and less as if he were 
drunk. 

“Thank you,” she said, when it was done. “It is — 
it is quite a fine night, is it not? The stars are beauti- 
ful. There is whisky on the desk — very good whisky, 
I believe. Won’t you help yourself?” 

“You ’re very good,” said the trooper, cordially, and 
helped himself. 

Ford came shortly. He ignored Mrs. Jakes and the 
trooper entirely and spoke to the Kafir only. His man- 
ner made a privacy from which the others were ex- 
cluded. 


363 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“I say,” he said, with a manner of trouble. “She ’s 
still in a faint. Very white, not breathing much, and 
rather cold. She looks bad.” 

The Kafir nodded. “You could n’t take her tempera- 
ture, of course,” he said. “There hadn’t been any 
fresh hemorrhage?” 

“No,” replied Ford. “I asked Fat Mary. She was 
there, and she said there ’d been no blood. I say — is 
it very dangerous?” 

He was a layman ; flesh and blood — blood particularly 
— were beyond his science and within the reach only of 
his pity and his fear. He had stood by Margaret’s bed 
and looked down on her ; he had bent his ear to her lips 
to make sure that she breathed and that her white immo- 
bility was not death. His hand had felt her forehead 
and been chilled by the cold of it; and he had tried in- 
expertly to find her pulse and failed. Fat Mary, hold- 
ing a candle, had illuminated his researches, grinning the 
while, and had answered his questions humorously, till 
she realized that she was in some danger of being as- 
saulted ; and then she had lied. 

He made his appeal to the Kafir as to a man of his 
own kind. 

“I ’m afraid it ’s not much use,” he said — “what I 
can tell you, I mean. But do you think there ’s much 
danger ? ’ 9 

Kamis shook his head. “There should n’t be,” he an- 
swered. “I wish I could see her. Cold, was she? Yes; 
temperature subnormal. I could cup, — but you could 
n’t. Do you think you could make a hypodermic injec- 
tion, if I showed you how?” 

“I could do any blessed thing,” declared Ford, fer- 
vently. 


364 


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‘ ‘ Digitalin and adrenalin, ’ ’ mused Kamis. ‘ 1 He won ’t 
have those, though. Do you know if he ’s got any er- 
gotin ? ’ ’ 

“He has/’ replied Ford. “He shoved some into me. 
Mrs. J akes — ergotin ? where is it ? ’ ’ 

Mrs. J akes was leaning on the back of the chair which 
contained the doctor. She had recovered from the emo- 
tion which had convulsed and unbalanced her at the dis- 
covery of the study’s open door. She looked up now 
languidly, in imitation of Margaret’s manner when she 
was not pleased with matters. 

“Really, you must ask the doctor,” she said. “I 
couldn’t think of — ah — disposing of such things.” 

Kamis had not waited to hear her out. Already he 
was overhauling the drawers of the desk for the syringe. 
Ford aided him. 

“Is this it?” he asked, at the second drawer he 
opened. 

“Thank God,” ejaculated Kamis. He could not help 
sending a glance of triumph at Mrs. Jakes. 

“Now attend to me,” he said to Ford. “First I ’ll 
show you how to inject it. Give me your arm ; can you 
stand a prick?” 

“Go ahead,” said Ford; “slowly, so that I can 
watch. ’ ’ 

“Take a pinch of skin like this,” directed the Kafir, 
closing his forefinger and thumb on a piece of 
Ford’s forearm. “See? Then, with the syringe in 
your hand, like this, push the needle in — like this. 
See?” 

“I see.” 

“Well, now do it to me. Here ’s the place.” 

The arm he bared was black brown, full and muscu- 

365 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

lar. Ford took the syringe and pinched the smooth 
warm skin. 

“In with it,” urged the Kafir. “Don’t be afraid, 
man. Now press the plunger down with your forefin- 
ger. See? Go on, can’t you? You mustn’t mess the 
business upstairs. Do it again.” 

4 1 That ’s enough, ’ ’ said Ford. 

Drops of blood issued from the puncture as he with- 
drew the needle, and he shivered involuntarily. It had 
been horrible to press the point home into that smooth 
and rounded arm; his own had not bled. 

“Mind now,” warned the Kafir. “You must run it 
well in. And now about the drug.” 

He was minute in his instructions and careful to 
avoid technical phrases and terms of art. He took the 
syringe and cleaned and charged and gave it to Ford. 

“Don’t funk it,” was his final injunction. “This is 
nothing. There may be worse for you to do yet.” 

“I won’t funk it,” promised Ford. “But — ” he ap- 
pealed to the Kafir with a shrug of deprecation — “but 
is n ’t it a crazy business ? ’ ’ 

It was like a swiftly-changing dream to him. The 
hot and dirty room, with the Kafir busy and thoughtful, 
the malevolent trooper and his revolver, the sprawl of 
the doctor and his slumberous calm and Mrs. Jakes grop- 
ing through the minutes for a cue to salvation, were un- 
convincing even when his eyes dwelt on them. They 
had not the savor of reality. Six paces away was the 
hall, severe and grand, with its open door making it a 
neighbor of the darkness and the stars. Then came the 
vacant stairs and the long lifeless corridors running be- 
tween the closed doors of rooms, and the light leaking 
366 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


out from under the door of Margaret’s chamber. 
Through such a variety one moves in dreams, where 
things have lost or changed their values and nothing is 
solid or immediate, and death is not troublous nor life 
significant. 

Fat Mary was resting in Margaret’s armchair when 
he pushed open the door and came in, carrying the syr- 
inge carefully with its point in the air. She rose hastily, 
fearful of a rebuke. 

“Miss Harding wake up yet?” Ford asked her. 

“No. Missis sleep all-a-time,” replied Fat Mary. 
“She plenty quiet, all- ’e-same dead.” 

“Shut up,” ordered Ford, in a harsh whisper. 
“You ’re a fool.” 

Fat Mary sniffed in cautious defiance and muttered 
in Kafir. Since her duties had lain about Margaret’s 
person, she had become unused to being called a fool. 
She pouted unpleasantly and stood watching unhelpfully 
as Ford went to the bedside. 

The blood had been washed away and there was noth- 
ing now to suggest violence or brutality. The girl 
lay on her back in the utter vacancy of unconsciousness ; 
the face had been wiped clean of all expression and left 
blank and void. Mrs. Jakes had known enough to re- 
move the pillows, which were in the chair Fat Mary had 
selected for her ease, and the head lay back on the level 
sheet with the brown hair tumbled to each side of it. 
Ford, looking down on her, was startled by a likeness to 
a recumbent stone figure he had seen in some church, 
with the marble drapery falling to either side of it as 
now the bedclothes fell over Margaret Harding. It 
needed only the crossed arms and the kneeling angel to 
367 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


complete the resemblance. The idea was hateful to him, 
and he made haste to get to the work he had to do in 
order to break away from it. 

The sleeve of the nightgown had soft lace at the wrist 
and a band of lace inserted higher up ; softness and deli- 
cacy surrounded her and made his task the harder. The 
forearm, when he had stripped the sleeve back, was cool 
and silk-smooth to his touch, slender and shining. His 
fingers almost circled its girth; it was strangely femi- 
nine and disturbing. A blue vein was distinct in the 
curve of the elbow, and others branched at the wrist 
where his finger could find no pulse. 

Fat Mary forgot her indignation in her curiosity, and 
came tiptoeing across the floor, holding a candle to light 
him, and stood at his shoulder to watch. Her big ridicu- 
lous face was gleeful as he took up the syringe ; she knew 
a joke when she saw one. 

Ford pinched the white skin with thumb and fore- 
finger as he had been bidden and touched it with the 
point of the needle. The point slipped and was reluctant 
to enter; he had to take hold firmly and thrust it, like a 
man sewing leather. The girl’s hand twitched slightly 
and fell open again and was passive. He felt sickish 
and feeble and had to knit himself to run the needle in 
deep and depress the plunger that deposited the drug in 
the arm. Over his shoulder Fat Mary watched avidly 
and grinned. 

He drew the sleeve down again and laid the arm back 
in its place. He passed a hand absently over his fore- 
head and found it damp with strange sweat, and he was 
conscious of being weary in every limb as though he had 
concluded some extreme physical effort. He looked care- 
fully at the unconscious girl, seeking for signs and indi- 
368 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


ces which he should report to Kamis. The likeness of 
the marble figure did not recur to him; his thoughts 
were laborious and slow. 

He woke Mr. Samson on his way downstairs, in- 
vading his room without knocking and shaking him 
by the shoulder. Mr. Samson snorted and thrust up 
a bewildered face to the light of the candle. His white 
mustache, which in the daytime cocked debonair points 
to port and starboard, hung down about his mouth and 
made him commonplace. 

4 ‘ What the devil ’ s up?” he gasped, staring wildly. 
“Oh, it ’s you, Ford.” 

“Get up,” said Ford. “There ’s the deuce to pay. 
That Kafir ’s arrested — Kamis, you know; Miss Hard- 
ing ’s had a bad hemorrhage and Jakes is dead drunk. 
I want you to go to Du Preez’s and send a messenger 
for another doctor. Hurry, will you?” 

“My sainted aunt,” exclaimed Mr. Samson, in 
amazement. “You don’t say. I ’ll be with you in 
a jiffy, Ford. Don’t you wait.” 

He threw a leg over the edge of the bed, revealing 
pyjamas strikingly striped, and Ford left him to 
improvise a toilet unwatched. 

The trooper was talking to Mrs. Jakes in the study 
when Ford returned there. He had relieved himself 
of his hat, and his big head, on which the hair was 
scant, was naked to the lamp. He had found himself 
a chair at the back of the desk, and reclined in it 
spaciously, with his half-empty tumbler at his elbow. 
The Kafir still stood where Ford had left him, his eyes 
roving gravely over the room and its contents. The 
trooper looked up as Ford came in, lifting his saturnine 
and aggressive features with a smile. He had drunk 
24 369 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


several glasses in a quick succession and was already 
thawed and voluble. 

“Well,” he said loudly. “How's interestin’ pa- 
tient? ’S well ’s can be expected — what? Didn’t ex- 
press wish to thank med’cal adviser in person, I 
s’pose?” 

Ford bent a hard look on him. 

“I ’ll attend to you in good time,” he said, with 
meaning. “For the present you can shut up.” 

He turned at once to the Kafir and began to tell him 
what he had seen and done, while the other steered him 
with brief questions. The trooper gazed at them with 
a fixed eye. 

“Shup,” he said, to Mrs. Jakes. “Says I can 
shup — for the present. Supposin’ I don’t shup, 
though. ’ ’ 

He drank, with a manner of confirming by that action 
a portentous resolution, and sat for some minutes 
grave and meditative, with his bitter, thin mouth 
sucked in. He never laid down the big revolver which 
he held. Its short, businesslike barrel rested on the 
blue cloth of his knee, and the blued metal reflected 
the light dully from its surfaces. 

“Is it dangerous?” Ford was asking. “From what 
I can tell you, do you think there ’s any real danger? 
She looks — she looks deadly.” 

“Yes, she would,” replied the Kafir thoughtfully. 
“I think I ’ve got an idea how things stand. As long 
as that unconsciousness lasts, there ’ll be no more 
hemorrhage, and there ’s the ergotin too. If there ’s 
nothing else, I don’t see that it should be serious — 
more serious, that is, than hemorrhages always are.”" 
370 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“You really think so?” asked Ford. “I wish you 
could see her for yourself, and make certain. Perhaps 
presently that swine with the revolver will be drunk 
enough to go to sleep or something, and we might 
manage it.” 

The Kafir shook his head. 

“If it were necessary, the revolver wouldn’t stop 
me,” he said. “But as it is — ” 

“What?” 

“Oh, do you think it would make things better for 
Miss Harding if you took me into her bedroom? You 
see what has happened already, because she has spoken 
to me from time to time. How would this sound, when 
it was dished up for circulation in the dorps?” 

Ford frowned unhappily. He did not want to meet 
the mournful eyes in the black face. 

“You think,” he began hesitatingly — “you think it 
— er — it would n ’t do ? ” 

“You were here when the other story came out,” re- 
torted Kamis. “Can you remember what you thought 
then ? ’ ’ 

“Oh, I was a fool of course,” said Ford; “but, con- 
found it, I didn’t think any harm.” 

“Didn’t you? But what did everybody think? 
Isn’t it true that as a result of all that was said 
and thought Miss Harding has to risk her life by re- 
turning to England?” 

“No, it wouldn’t do, I suppose,” said Ford. “Be- 
tween us we ’ve made it a pretty tough business for 
her. We ’re brutes.” 

The thick negro lips parted in a smile that was not 
humorous. 


371 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


*‘At a little distance, ” said Kamis, “say, from the 
other side of the color line, you certainly make a poor 
appearance. ’ ’ 

Mr. Samson made his entry with an air of coming to 
set things right or know the reason. 

“Well, I ’ll be hanged,” he exclaimed in the door- 
way, making a sharp inspection of the scene. 

He had got together quite a plausible equivalent 
for his daily personality, and had not omitted to make 
his mustache recognizable with pomade. A New- 
market coat concealed most of his deficiencies ; his 
monocle made the rest of them insignificant. 

Mrs. Jakes sighed and fidgeted. 

“Oh, Mr. Samson,” she said. “What can I say to 
you ? ’ ’ 

“Say ‘ good-morning, ’ ” suggested Mr. Samson, with 
his eye on Jakes. “Better send for the ‘boys’ to carry 
him up to bed, to begin with — what? Well, Ford, here 
I am, ready and waiting. This the fellow, eh?'” 

His arrogant gaze rested on the Kafir intolerantly. 

“This is Kamis,” said Ford. “Dr. Kamis, of 
London, by the way. He is treating Miss Harding at 
present.” 

“Eh?” Mr. Samson turned on him abruptly. 
“You ’ve taken him up there, to her room?” 

“No,” said Ford. “Not yet.” 

“See you don’t, then,” said Mr. Samson strongly. 
“What you thinkin’ about, Ford? And look here, 
what’s your name!” — to the Kafir. “You speak 
English, don’t you? Well, I don’t want to hurt your 
feelin’s, you know, but you ’ve got to understand quite 
plainly — ” 

Kamis interrupted him suavely. 

372 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“You need n’t trouble,” he said. “I quite agree with 
you. I was just telling Mr. Ford the same thing.” 

“Were you, by Jove,” snorted Mr. Samson, entirely 
unappeased. “Pity you didn’t come to the same con- 
clusion a month ago. You may be a doctor and all 
that; I ’ve no means of disprovin’ what you say; but 
in so far as you compromised little Miss Harding, 
you ’re a black cad. Just think that over, will you? 
Now, Ford, what d’ you want me to do?” 

There was power of a sort in Mr. Samson, the power 
of unalterable conviction and complete sincerity. In 
his Newmarket coat and checked cloth cap he thrust 
himself with fluency into the scene and made himself 
its master. He gave an impression of din, of shouting 
and tumult; he made himself into a clamorous crowd. 
Mrs. Jakes trembled under his glance and the trooper 
blinked servilely. Ford, concerned chiefly to have a 
messenger despatched without delay, bowed to the 
storm and gave him his instructions without protest. 

“Mind, now,” stipulated Mr. Samson, ere he de- 
parted on his errand; “no takin’ the nigger upstairs, 
Ford. There ’s a decency in these affairs.” 

The trooper nodded solemnly to the departing flap of 
the Newmarket tails, making their exit with a New- 
market aplomb. 

“Noble ol’ buck,” he observed, approvingly. “Goo’ 
style. Gift o’ the gab. Here ’s luck to him.” 

He gulped noisily in his glass, spilling the liquor on 
his tunic as he drank. 

“Knows nigger when he sees ’im,” he said. “Frien’ 
o’ yours?” 

“Mr. Samson,” replied Mrs. Jakes seriously, “is a 
very old friend.” 


373 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Goblessim,” said the trooper. “Less ’ave anurr.” 

Kamis and Ford regarded one another as Mr. Sam- 
son left them and both were a little embarrassed. 
Plain speaking is always a brutality, since it sets every 
man on his defense. 

“I ’m sorry there was a fuss,” said Ford uncom- 
fortably. “Old Samson ’s such a beggar to make 
rows. ’ ’ 

“He was right,” said Kamis; “perfectly right. 
Only — I did n't need to be told. I ’ve been cursing 
myself ever since I heard that the thing had come 
out. It ’s my fault altogether — and I knew it long 
before the row happened, and I let it go on.” 

Ford nodded with his eyes on the ground. 

“You could hardly — order her off,” he said. 

“That wasn’t it,” answered Kamis. “Man, I was 
as lonely as a man on a raft, and I jumped at the 
chance of her company now and again. I sacrificed 
her, I tell you. Don’t try to make excuses for me. 
I won’t have them. Go up and see how she is. What 
are we talking here for?” 

“God knows,” said Ford drearily. “What else is 
there to do? We ’ve both wronged her, haven’t we?” 

There was no change in Margaret; she was as he had 
left her, pallid and motionless, a temptation to death. 

Fat Mary was asleep in the armchair, gross and dis- 
gustful, and he woke her with the heel of his slipper 
on her big splay foot. She squeaked and came to life 
angrily and reported no movement from Margaret. He 
had an impulse to hit her, she was so obviously pre- 
pared to say anything he seemed to require and she was 
so little like a woman. It was impossible in reason and 
sentiment to connect her with the still, fragile form 
374 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


on the bed, and he had to exercise an actual and con- 
scious restraint to refrain from an openhanded smack 
on her bulging and fatuous countenance. He could 
only call her wounding names, and he did so. She 
drooped her lower lip at him piteously and again he 
yearned to punch her. 

There was no change to report to Kamis, who nodded 
at his account and spoke a perfunctory, “All righL 
Thanks.” The trooper sat in a daze, scowling at his 
boots; Mrs. Jakes was lost in thought; the doctor had 
not moved. Ford fidgeted to and fro between the 
desk and the door for a while and finally went out to 
the stoep and walked to and fro along its length, try- 
ing to realize and to feel what was happening. 

He knew that he was not appreciating the matter 
as a whole. He was like a man dully afflicted, to 
whom momentary details are present and apparent, 
while the sum of his trouble is uncomprehended. He 
could dislike the apprehensive and timidly presumptu- 
ous face of the trooper, pity Mrs. Jakes, distaste Mr. 
Samson’s forceful loudness, smell the foulness of the 
study and wonder at the Kafir; but the looming essen- 
tial fact that Margaret lay in a swoon on her bed, 
lacking the aid due to her and in danger of death 
in a dozen forms — that had been vague and diffused 
in his understanding. He had not known it passion- 
ately, poignantly, in its full dreadfulness. 

He told himself the facts carefully, going over them 
with a patient emphasis to point them at himself. 

“Margaret may die; it ’s very likely she will, with 
only a fool like me to see how she looks. I never 
called her Margaret till to-day — but it ’s yesterday 
now. And here ’s this damned story about her, which 
375 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


every one knows wrongly and adds lies to when he 
tells it. It would look queer on the stage — Kamis doc- 
toring her like this. But the point is — she may die.” 

The sky was full of stars, white and soft and misty, 
like tearful eyes, and the Southern Cross, in which he 
had never been able to detect anything like a cross, 
rode high. He could not hold his thoughts from wan- 
dering to it and the absurdity of calling a mere 
blotch like that a cross. Heaps of other stars that did 
make crosses — neat and obvious ones. The sky was 
full of crosses, for that matter. Astronomers were 
asses, all of them. But the point was, Margaret might 
die. 

“That you, Ford?” 

Mr. Samson was coming up the steps and with him 
were Christian du Preez and his wife. 

“These good people are anxious to help,” explained 
Mr. Samson. “Very good of ’em — what? And young 
Paul ’s gone off on a little stallion to send Dr. Van 
Coller. Turned out at the word like a fire engine and 
was off like winkin’. Never saw anything smarter. 
If the doctor ’s half as smart he ’ll be here in four 
hours.” 

“That ’s good,” said Ford. 

“And Mrs. du Preez ’ll stay with Miss Harding an’ 
do what she can,” said Mr. Samson. 

“I ’ll do any blessed thing,” declared Mrs. du Preez 
with energy. 

Mr. Samson stood aside to let his companions enter 
the house before him. He whispered with buoyant 
force to Ford. 

“A chaperon to the rescue,” he said. “We ’ve got 
a chaperon, and the rest follows. You see if it don’t.” 

376 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


There was a brief interview between Mrs. du Preez 
and the Kafir under the eyes of the tall Boer. Mr. 
Samson had already informed them of the situation 
in the study, and they were not taken by surprise, and 
the Kafir fell in adroitly with the tone they took. 
Ford thought that Mrs. du Preez displayed a curious 
timidity before the negro, a conspicuous improvement 
on her usual perky cocksureness. 

“Just let me know if there is any change,” Kamis 
said to her. “That is all. If she recovers conscious- 
ness, for instance, come to me at once.” 

“I will,” answered Mrs. du Preez, with subdued 
fervor. 

There seemed nothing left for Ford to do. Mrs. du 
Preez departed to her watch, and it was at least sat- 
isfactory to know that Fat Mary would now have to 
deal with one who would beat her on the first occa- 
sion without compunction. Mr. Samson and the Boer 
departed to the drawing-room in search of a breathable 
air, and after an awkward while Ford followed them 
thither. 

“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Samson, as he appeared. 
“Here you are. You ’d better try and snooze, Ford. 
Been up all night, haven’t you?” 

“Pretty nearly,” admitted Ford. “I couldn’t 
sleep, though.” 

“You try,” recommended Mr. Samson urgently. 
“Lie down on the couch and have a shot. You ’re 
done up; you’re not yourself. What d’you think, 
Du Preez? He was nearly takin’ that nigger up to 
Miss Harding’s room. What d’you think of that, eh?” 

He was sitting on the music stool, an urbane and 
adequate presence. 


377 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


The Boer shook his head. “That would be bad,” he 
said seriously. “He is a good nigger — ya! But better 
she should die.” 

Ford laughed wearily as he sat down. ‘ ‘ That was his 
idea,” he said. 

He leaned back to listen to their talk. Sleep, he 
felt, was far from him. Margaret might die — that had 
to be kept in mind. He heard them discuss the Kafir 
stupidly, ridiculously. It was pothouse talk, the 
chatter of companionable fools, frothing round and 
round their topic. Their minds were rigid like a pair 
of stiffened corpses set facing one another; they never 
reached an imaginative hand towards the wonder and 
pity of the matter. And Margaret — the beautiful 
name that it was — Margaret might die. 

Half an hour later, Mr. Samson slewed his monocle 
towards him. 

“Sleepin’ after all,” he remarked. “Poor devil— 
no vitality. Not like you an’ me, Du Preez — what?” 

Ford knew he had slept when the Boer woke him 
in the broad daylight. 

“The doctor is here,” said Christian. “He says it 
is all right. He says — she has been done right with. 
She will not die.” 

“Thank God,” said Ford. 

Mr. Samson was in the room. The daylight showed 
the incompleteness of his toilet; he was a mere imita- 
tion of his true self. His triumphant smile failed to 
redeem him. The bald truth was — he was not dressed. 

“Everything ’s as right as rain,” he declared, 
wagging his tousled white head. “Sit where you are, 
my boy; there ’s nothing for you to do. Dr. Van 
Coller had an infernal thing he calls a motor-bicycle, 
378 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


and it brought him the twenty-two miles in fifty min- 
utes. Makes a noise like a traction engine and stinks 
like the dickens. Got an engine of sorts, you know, 
and goes like anything. But the point is, Miss Hard- 
ing ’s going on like a house on fire. Your nigger-man 
and you did just the right thing, it appears.” 

“Where is he?” asked Ford. 

“The nigger-man?” 

Mr. Samson and the Boer exchanged glances. 

“Look here,” said Mr. Samson; “Du Preez and I 
had an understanding about it, but don’t let it go 
any further. You see, after all that has happened, 
we could n ’t let the chap go to gaol. No sense in that. 
So the bobby being as drunk as David’s sow, I had a 
word with him. I told him I didn’t retract anything, 
but we were all open to make mistakes, and — to cut it 
short — he ’d better get away while he had the chance.” 

‘ ‘ Yes, ’ ’ said Ford. “ Did he ? ” 

“He didn’t want to at first,” replied Mr. Samson. 
“His idea was that he had to clear himself of the 
charge on which he was arrested. Sedition, you know. 
All rot, of course, but that was his idea. So I 
promised to write to old Bill Winter — feller that owes 
me money — he ’s governor of the Cape, or something, 
and put it to him straight.” 

“He will write to him and say it is lies,” said the 
Boer. “He knows him.” 

“Know him,” cried Mr. Samson. “Never paid me 
a bet he lost, confound him. Regular old welcher, 
Bill is. Van Coller chipped in too — treated him like 
an equal. And in the end he went. Van Coller says 
he ’d like to have had his medical education. I say, 
what ’s that?” 


379 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


A sudden noise had interrupted him, a sharp report 
from somewhere within the house. The Boer nodded 
slowly, and made for the door. 

‘ ‘That policeman has shot somebody,” he said. 

Dr. Jakes waked to the morning light with a taste 
in his mouth which was none the more agreeable for 
being familiar. He opened his hot eyes to the strange 
disarray of his study, the open door and the somnolent 
form of the policeman, and sat up with a jerk, almost 
sober. He stared around him uncomprehending. 
The lamp burned yet, and the room was stiflingly hot; 
the curtains had not been put back and the air was 
heavy and foul. He got shakily to his feet and went 
towards the hall. His wife, with coffee cups on a 
tray, was coming down the stairs. She saw him and 
put the tray down on the table against the wall and 
went to him. 

“Well, Eustace?” she said tonelessly. “What is it 
now?” 

He cleared his burning throat. “Who opened the 
door?” he asked hoarsely. 

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she an- 
swered. ‘ ‘ It does n ’t matter — we ’re ruined at last. 
It ’s come, Eustace.” 

He made strange grimaces in an endeavor to clear 
his mind and grasp what she was saying. She watched 
him unmoved, and went on to tell him, in short bald 
sentences of the night’s events. 

“Dr. Van Coller will be down presently,” she con- 
cluded. “He ’ll want to see you, but you can lock 
your door if you like. He ’s seen me already.” 

He had her meaning at last. He blinked at her 
380 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

owlishly, incapable of expressing the half-thoughts that 
dodged in his drugged brain. 

“Poor old Hester/ ’ he said, at last, and turned 
heavily back to his study. 

Mrs. Jakes smiled in pity and despair, and took up 
her tray again. She thought she knew better than 
he how poor she was. 

He slammed the door behind him, but he did not 
trouble to lock it. Something he had seen when he 
opened his eyes stuck in his mind, and he went stag- 
geringly round the untidy desk, with its bottles and 
papers, to where the policeman sprawled in a chair 
with his Punchinello chin on his breast. His loose 
hands retained yet the big revolver. 

“He ’ll come to it too,” was Dr. Jakes’ thought as 
he looked down on him. He drew the weapon with 
precaution from the man’s hand. 

He stood an instant in thought, looking at its neat 
complication of mechanism and then raised it slowly 
till the small round of the muzzle returned his look. 
His face clenched in desperate resolution. But he did 
not pull the trigger. At the critical moment, his eye 
caught the lamp, burning brazenly on the wall. He 
went over and turned it out. 

“Now,” he said, and raised the revolver again. 


381 


CHAPTER XIX 


PON that surprising morning when Mr. Sam- 



son, taking his early constitutional, was a witness 


to the cloud that rode across the sun and presently 
let go its burden of wet to fall upon the startled 
earth in slashing, roaring sheets of rain, there stood 
luggage in the hall, strapped, locked, and ready for 
transport. 

“Gad!” said Mr. Samson, breathless in the front 
door and backing from the splashes of wet that leaped 
on the railing of the stoep and drove inwards. 
“They ’ll have a wet ride.” 

He flicked at spots of water on the glossy surface of 
his gray coat and watched the rain drive across and 
hide the Karoo like a steel-hued fog. The noise of it, 
after months of sun and stillness, was distracting; it 
threshed vehemently with uproar and power, in the ex- 
travagant fashion of those latitudes. It was the sig- 
nal that the weather had broken, justifying at length 
Mrs. Jakes’ conversational gambit. 

She came from the breakfast-room while he watched, 
with the wind from the open door romping in her thin 
skirts, and stood beside him to look out. They ex- 
changed good mornings. 

“Isn’t it wet?” said Mrs. Jakes resourcefully. 
“But I dare say it ’s good for the country.” 


“Rather,” agreed Mr. Samson. “It ’ll be all green 


382 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 

before yon know it. Bnt damp for the travelers — 
what?” 

“They will have the hood on the cart,” replied Mrs. 
J akes. 

She was not noticeably changed since the doctor’s 
death, three weeks before. Her clothes had always 
been black, so that she was exempt from the gruesome 
demands of custom to advertise her loss in her gar- 
ments. The long habit of shielding Jakes from open 
shame had become a part of her; so that instead of 
abandoning her lost position, she was already in the 
way of canonizing him. She made reverential refer- 
ences to his professional skill, to his goodness, his 
learning, his sacrifices to duty. She looked people 
steadily and defiantly in the eyes as she said so, and 
had her own way with them. The foundations were 
laid of a tradition which presented poor Jakes in a 
form he would never have recognized. k He was in his 
place behind the barbed wire out on the veld, sharing 
the bed of little Eustace, heedless that there was build- 
ing for him a mausoleum of good report and loyal 
praise. 

“Hate to see luggage in a house,” remarked Mr. 
Samson, as they passed the pile in the hall on their 
way to the breakfast-room. “Nothing upsets a house 
like luggage. Looks so bally unsettled, don’t you 
know.” 

“Things are a little unsettled,” agreed Mrs. Jakes 
civilly. “What with the rain and everything, it 
doesn’t seem like the same place, does it?” 

She gave a tone of mild complaint to her voice, ex- 
actly as though a disturbance in the order of her life 
were a thing to be avoided. It would not have been 
383 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


consistent with the figure of the late Jakes, as she 
was sedulous to present it, if she had admitted that 
the house and its routine, its purpose, its atmosphere, 
its memories, the stones in its walls and the tiles on 
its roof, were the objects of her living hate. She was 
already in negotiations for the sale of it and what she 
called “the connection, ’ ’ and had called Mr. Samson 
and Ford into consultation over correspondence with 
a doctor at Port Elizabeth, who wrote with a type- 
writer and was inquisitive about balance-sheets. 
Throughout the consequent discussions she maintained 
an air of gentle and patient regret, an attitude of re- 
signed sentiment, the exact manner of a lady in a story 
who sells the home of her ancestors to a company 
promoter. Even her anxiety to sell Ford and Mr. 
Samson along with the house did not cause her to de- 
flect for an instant from the course of speech and 
action she had selected. There were yet Penfolds in 
Putney and Clapham Junction, and when the sale was 
completed she would see them again and rejoin their 
congenial circle; but her joy at the prospect was pri- 
vate, her final and transcendent secret. 

Nothing is more natural to man than to pose; by a 
posture, he can correct the crookedness of his nature 
and be for himself, and sometimes for others too, the 
thing he would be. It is the instinct towards pro- 
tective coloring showing itself through broadcloth and 
bombazine. 

Mr. Samson accepted his coffee and let his monocle 
fall into it, a sign that he was discomposed to an 
unusual degree. He sat wiping it and frowning. 

“Did I tell you/’ he said suddenly, “that — er — that 
Kafir ’s going to look in just before they start?” 

384 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Mrs. Jakes looked up sharply. 

“You mean — that Kamis?” she demanded. “He ’s 
coming here?” 

“Ye-es,” said Mr. Samson. “Just for a minute or 
two. Er — Ford knows about it.” 

“To see Miss Harding, I suppose?” inquired Mrs. 
Jakes, with a sniff. 

“Yes,” replied Mr. Samson again. “It isn’t my 
idea of things, but then, things have turned out so 
dashed queer, don’t you know. He wrote to ask if he 
might say good-by; very civil, reasonable kind of let- 
ter; Ford brought it to me an’ asked my opinion. 
Couldn’t overlook the fact that he had a hand in sav- 
ing her life, you know. So on my advice, Ford wrote 
to the feller saying that if he ’d understand there was 
going to be no private interview, or anything of that 
kind, he could turn up at ten o’clock an’ take his 
chance.” 

“But,” said Mrs. Jakes hopefully, “supposing the 
police — ” 

“Bless you, that ’s all right,” Mr. Samson assured 
her. “The police don’t want to see him again. Seems 
that old Bill Winter — you know I wrote to him? 
— seems that old Bill went to work like the dashed old 
beaver he is, and had Van Zyl’s head on a charger 
for his breakfast. The Kafir-man ’s got a job of some 
sort, doctorin’ niggers somewhere. The police never 
mention him any more.” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Jakes, “I can’t prevent you, of 
course, from bringing Kafirs here, Mr. Samson, but 
I ’ve got my feelings. When I think of poor Eustace, 
and that Kafir thrusting himself in — well, there!” 

Mr. Samson drank deep of his coffee, trying vaguely; 

25 385 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


to suggest in his manner of drinking profound sym- 
pathy with Mrs. Jakes and respect for what she some- 
times called the departed. Also, the cup hid her from 
him. 

It was strange how the presence of Margaret’s lug- 
gage in the hall pervaded the house with a sense of 
impermanence and suspense. It gave even to the 
breakfast the flavor of the mouthful one snatches while 
turning over the baffling pages of the timetable. 
Ford, when he came in, was brusk and irresponsive, 
though he was not going anywhere, and Margaret’s 
breakfast went upstairs on a tray. Kafir servants were 
giggling and whispering up and down stairs and were 
obviously interested in the leather trunks. A house 
with packed luggage in it has no character of a dwell- 
ing; it is only a stopping-place, a minister to transi- 
tory needs. As well have a coffin in the place as lug- 
gage ready for removal; between them, they comprise 
all that is removable in human kind. 

4 ‘Well,” said Mr. Samson to Ford, attempting con- 
versation; “we ’re goin’ to have the place to ourselves 
again. Eh?” 

“You seem pleased,” replied Ford unamiably. 

“I ’m bearin’ up,” said Mr. Samson. “You seem 
grieved, though.” 

“That,” said Ford, with venom, “is because I ’m 
being bored.” 

“The deuce you are.” Mr. Samson was annoyed. 
“I don’t want to talk to you, you know. Sulk all you 
want to; doesn’t affect me. But if you could substi- 
tute a winnin’ smile for the look you ’re wearin’ at 
present, it would be more appetizin’.” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“Er — the rain seems to be drawing-off, I think,’ ’ 
remarked Mrs. Jakes, energetically. “It might be quite 
fine by-and-by. What do you think, Mr. Samson?” 

Mr. Samson, ever obedient to her prompting, made 
an inspection of the prospect through the window. But 
his sense of injury was strong. 

“There are things much more depressing than rain,” 
he said, rancorously, and occupied himself pointedly 
with his food. 

Ford made his apology as soon as they were free 
from Mrs. Jakes. She had much to do in the unseen 
organization of the departure, and apologized for leav- 
ing them to themselves. It was another adjunct of 
the luggage ; not within the memory of man had inmates 
of the Sanatorium sat at table without Mrs. Jakes. 

“Sorry,” said Ford then, in a matter-of-fact way. 

“Are you?” said Mr. Samson grudgingly. “All 
right.” 

And that closed the incident. 

Soon after breakfast, when the stoep was still unin- 
habitable and the drawing-room unthinkable and the 
hall uncongenial, Margaret came downstairs, unfa- 
miliar in clothes which the Sanatorium had not seen 
before. Mrs. Jakes made mental notes of them, gazing 
with narrow eyes and lips moving in a soundless in- 
ventory. She came down smiling but uncertain. 

“I didn’t know it could rain,” was her greeting. 
“Did you see the beginning of it? It was wonderful 
— like an eruption.” 

“I saw it,” said Mr. Samson. “I got wet in it. 
It ’ll be cool for your drive to the station, even if it ’s 
a bit damp.” 


387 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


“ There ’s still half an hour to wait before the cart 
comes,” said Margaret. “Where does one sit when 
it ’s raining?” 

“One doesn’t,” said Mr. Samson. “One stands 
about in draughts and one frets, one does.” 

“Come into the drawing-room,” said Ford briefly. 

Margaret looked at him with a smile for his serious- 
ness and his manner of one who desires to get to busi- 
ness, but she yielded, and Mr. Samson ambled in their 
wake, never doubting that he was of their company. 
Ford, holding the door open for Margaret, surprised 
him with a forbidding scowl. 

“We don’t want you,” he whispered fiercely, and 
shut the affronted and uncomprehending old gentle- 
man out. 

The drawing-room was forlorn and very shabby in the 
cold light of the rainy day and the tattoo of the rain- 
splashes on its window. Margaret went to the hearth 
where Dr. Jakes had been wont to expiate his crimes, 
and leaned her arm on the mantel, looking about the 
apartment. 

“It ’s queer,” she said; “I shall miss this.” 

“Margaret,” said Ford. 

She turned to him, still smiling. She answered 
nothing, but waited for him to continue. 

“I wanted to tell you something,” he went on 
steadily. “You know I love you, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” she answered slowly. “You — you said so.” 

“I said it because I do,” he said. “Well, Dr. Van 
Coller was here yesterday, and when he had done 
with you, I had a word with him. I wanted to know 
if I could go Home too ; so he came up to my room 
and made an examination of me, a careful one.” 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


Margaret had ceased to smile. “Yes,” she said. 
“Tell me: what did he say?” 

“He said No,” replied Ford. “I mustn’t leave 
here. He was very clear about it. I ’ve got to stay.” 

The emphasis with which he spoke was merely to 
make her understand; he invited no pity for himself 
and felt none. He was merely giving information. 

“But,” said Margaret, — “never? It isn’t as bad 
as that, is it?” 

“He couldn’t tell. He isn’t really a lung man, 
you know. But it doesn’t make any real difference, 
now you ’re going. Two years or ten years or for- 
ever — you ’ll be away among other people and I ’ll be 
here and the gap between us will be wider every day. 
We ’ve been friends and I had hopes — nothing cures 
a chap of hoping, not even his lungs; but now I ’ve 
got to cure myself of it, because it ’s no use. I would 
n’t have told you, Margaret — ” 

“Yes, you would,” interrupted Margaret. “You 
wouldn’t have let me go away without knowing, since 
you — you love me.” 

4 ‘ That ’s it, exactly. ’ ’ He nodded ; he had been 
making a point and she had seen it. “I felt you were 
entitled to know, but I can’t say why. You understand, 
though, don ’t you ? ’ ’ 

“Yes,” she said. “I understand.” 

“I knew you would,” he answered. “And you 
won’t think I ’m whining. I ’m not. I ’m so thank- 
ful that we ’ve been together and understood each 
other and that I love you that I don’t reckon myself 
a loser in the end. It ’s all been pure gain to me. 
As long as I live I shall be better off for it; I shall 
live on it always and never let any of it go. If I never 
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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


see you again, I shall still be to the good. But perhaps 
I shall. God knows. ’ ’ 

“Oh, you will,” cried Margaret. “You’re sure 
to.” 

He smiled suddenly. “That ’s what I tell myself. 
If I get all right, it ’ll be the easiest thing in the world. 
I ’ll come and call on you, wherever you happen to be, 
and send in my card. And if I ’m not going to get 
well, I shall have to know it sooner or later, and then, 
if you ’d let me, I ’d come just the same. 

“I shouldn’t expect anything,” he added quickly. 
“Not a single thing. Don’t be afraid of that. Just 
send in my card, as I said, and see you again and talk 
to you, and call you Margaret. I wouldn’t cadge; you 
could trust me not to do that, at least.” 

“You must get well and then come,” said the girl 
softly. “And if you call me Margaret, I will call 
you—” 

She stopped. “I never heard your Christian 
name,” she said. 

“Just John,” he answered, smiling. “John — not 
Jack or anything. I will come, you can be sure. 
Either free or a ticket-of-leave, I ’ll come. And now, 
say good-by. I must n ’t keep you any longer ; I ’ve 
hurt old Samson’s feelings as it is. Good-by, Margaret. 
You ’ll get well in Switzerland, but you won’t forget 
the Karoo, will you? Good-by.” 

“I won’t forget anything,” said Margaret, with eyes 
that were bright and tender. “Good-by. When your 
card comes in, I shall be ever so glad. Good-by.” 

There was a fidgety interval before the big cart drove 
up to the house, its wheels rending through the gritty 
mud and its horses steaming as though they had been 
390 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


boiled. Mr. Samson employed each interlude in the 
talk to glare at Ford in lofty offense; he seemed only 
to be waiting till this dull business of departure was con- 
cluded to call him to account. Mrs. du Preez, who had 
come across in the cart to bid Margaret farewell, was 
welcome as a diversion. 

“Well, where ’s the lucky one?” she cried. “Ah, 
Miss Harding, can’t you smell London from here? If 
you could bottle that smell, with a drop o’ fog, a drop 
o’ dried fish and a drop o’ Underground Railway to 
bring out the flavor, you ’d make a fortune, sellin’ it 
to us poor Afrikanders. But you ’ll be sniffin’ it from 
the cask in three weeks from now. Lord, I wish it was 
me.” 

“You ought to make a trip,” suggested Margaret. 

“Christian don’t think so,” declared Mrs. du Preez, 
with her shrill laugh. “He knows I ’d stick where I 
touched like a fly in a jam-pot, and he ’d have to come 
and pull me out of it himself.” 

She took an occasion to drop a private whisper into 
Margaret’s ear. 

“Kamis is outside, waitin’ to see you go. He ’s 
talkin’ to Paul.” 

The farewells accomplished themselves. That of Mrs. 
F Jakes would have been particularly effective but for the 
destructive intrusion of Mrs. du Preez. 

“Er — a pleasant voyage, Miss Harding,” she said, 
in a thin voice. “I may be in London soon myself — 
at Putney. But I suppose we ’re hardly likely to meet 
before you go abroad again.” 

“I wonder,” said Margaret peaceably. 

It was then that Mrs. du Preez struck in. 

“Putney,” she said, in a loud and callous voice, in 

391 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


itself sufficient to scrape Mrs. "Jakes raw. “ South the 
water, eh? But you can easy run up to London from 
there if Miss Harding sends for’ you, can’t you?” 

Kamis came eagerly to the foot of the steps as Mar- 
garet came down, and Mr. Samson, with a loud cough, 
posted himself at the head of them to superintend. 

‘ ‘I am glad you came,” said Margaret. “I didn’t 
want to go away without seeing you.” 

He glanced up at Mr. Samson and the others, a con- 
scientious audience ranged above him, deputies of the 
Colonial Mrs. Grundy, and smiled comprehendingly. 

“Oh, I had to come,” he said. “I had to bid you 
good-by.” 

There was no change in his appearance since she had 
seen him last. His tweed clothes were worn and shabby 
as ever, and still strange in connection with his negro 
face. 

“And I wanted to thank you for what you did for 
me that night,” said Margaret earnestly. “It was a 
horrible thing, wasn’t it? But I hear — I have heard 
that it has come all right.” 

Mr. Samson coughed again. Mrs. Jakes, with an el- 
bow in each hand, coughed also. 

“All right for me, certainly,” the Kafir answered. 
4 ‘ They have given me something to do. There ’s an ep- 
idemic of smallpox among the natives in the Transkei, 
and I ’m to go there at once. It couldn’t be better 
for me. But you. How about you?” 

The Kafir boys who were carrying out the trunks and 
stacking them under Paul’s directions in the cart were 
eyeing them curiously, and the audience above never 
wavered in its solemn watch. It was ridiculous and ex- 
asperating. 


392 


FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


‘ ‘Oh, I shall do very well/’ said Margaret, striving 
to be impervious to the influence of those serious eyes. 
“You have my address, have n ’t you? You must write 
me how you get on.” 

“If you like,” he agreed. 

“You must,” she said. “I shall be keen to hear. I 
believed in you when nobody else did, except Paul.” 

A frightful cough from above did not silence her. 
She answered it with a shrug. She meant to say all she 
had to say, though the ground were covered with eaves- 
droppers. 

“I shan’t forget our talks,” she went on; “under 
the dam, with Paul’s models. You ’ll get on now; 
you ’ll do all you wanted to do ; but I was in at the be- 
ginning, wasn’t I?” 

“You were, indeed,” he answered; “at the darkest 
part of it, the best thing that ever happened to me. 
And now you ’ve got to go. I ’m keeping you too 
long.” 

Mr. Samson coughed again as they shook hands and 
came down the steps to assist Margaret into the cart. 

“Remember,” said the girl; “you must write. And 
I shall always be glad and proud I knew you. Good- 
by and good luck.” 

“Good-by,” said the Kafir. “I ’ll write. The best 
of luck.” 

Paul put his rug over her knees and reached for his 
whip. The tall horses leaned and started, and the stoep 
and its occupants, and the Kafir and Mr. Samson, slid 
back. A thin chorus of “good-bys” rose, and Margaret 
leaned out to wave her hand. A watery sun shone on 
them feebly between clouds and they looked like the cul- 
minating scene in some lugubrious drama. 

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FLOWER O’ THE PEACH 


When next she looked back, she saw the house against 
the gray sky, solitary and little, with all the Karoo for 
its background. It looked unsubstantial and vague, as 
though a mirage were left over from the months of sun, 
to be the abode of troubles and perplexities that would 
soon be dim and remote also. Paul pulled his horses to 
a standstill that she might see better; but even at that 
moment fresh rain drummed on the hood of the cart 
and came threshing about them, blotting the house from 
view. 

“That ’s the last of it, Paul,” said Margaret. “No 
more looking back now.” 

Paul smiled slowly and presently found words. 

“When we come to the station,” he said, “I will find 
a Kafir to hold the horses and I will take you to the 
train. But I will not say much good-by.” 

“Why not?” inquired Margaret. 

“Because soon I am coming to London too,” he an- 
swered happily, “and I will see you there.” 

Mr. Samson and Ford were the last to reenter the 
house. The Kafir had gone off unnoticed, saying noth- 
ing; and Mrs. Jakes could not escape the conversational 
attentions of Mrs. du Preez and was suffering in the 
drawing-room. The two men stayed to watch the cart 
till the rain swept in and hid it. Then Mr. Samson 
resumed his threatful glare at Ford. 

“Look here,” he said formidably. “What d’you 
mean by your dashed cheek? Eh?” 

“Sorry,” said Ford calmly. 

Mr. Samson snorted. “Are you?” he said. “Well 
— all right!” 

THE END 


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